Broken
by TimeIncursion
Summary: A young guy is given a persocom somebody abandoned at a shop. She is in decent condition, except she cannot talk. An October surprise! Next one's up and ready!
1. Prologue

Guess what? I don't own Chobits either!

Anyway, first fic so go easy on me. If ya like it I'll keep on writing.

Broken-

Prologue

Saburo was your normal techno-geek. A huge interest in hardware and software of all types. His apartment is always cluttered with second hand hardware and systems, almost every one of them modified beyond recognition to all but the most tech savvy. He had a knack for taking old parts and coercing them to perform far beyond what was thought possible.

And he liked it.

He found challenges in fixing broken things. He enjoyed pushing himself, improving on what designers said could not be improved. To him, it was cooler to hack a piece of outdated hardware rather than to flash a wad of money and pick up the newest techno toy. And since he was usually low on funds, it fit his lifestyle perfectly.

I suppose that's what led him to her.


	2. Morning for Saburo

Ch. 1 - Morning for Saburo

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Saburo turned over in his bed, grunting and moaning. Morning was not his favorite time. He quickly smacked the keyboard on his bedside table to silence the obnoxious noise he called an alarm. Slowly sitting up and rubbing his eyes, he reached for the can of soda he had been drinking the night before.

"Aaaahhh, that's what I needed." Saburo said, taking a swig of the day old drink. He grabbed the keyboard and slid to the side of his bed to check his mail and message boards. He took another sip as he poured through his emails.

"Crap, crap, keep that, crap, no I don't want to safely enlarge my..." The phone rang breaking his concentration. He leaned over to pick it up.

"Uhhhhh... hello?" Saburo asked.

"Hey Saburo! What's up?" The voice on the other end yelled.

"Not me, not yet. Whatcha need Daisuke?"

"Good grief, how late did you stay up?"

"Ummmm..." Saburo tried to remember what the clock said last. "4 in the morning, last time I checked at least."

"I expected as much. Hey, got a question for you."

"Fire away."

"I'm heading out in a bit, got a bit of shopping to do. Would you like to tag along? We can hit some electronic shops. You can window shop the persocom store like you always do." Daisuke was certain that Saburo could not resist rummaging through old electronics and getting a peek at the newest persocoms to hit the stores.

"You know I'm in. Gotta let me get showered and dressed first."

"Take your time, just come on by when you're ready to go."

"Sounds good, see you then!"

Daisuke is Saburo's best friend. Except for his coworkers, he's his only friend. They've known each other since high school. Daisuke was one of the few people at school that would even talk to him. Saburo wasn't one of the popular students, too much into computers and not enough into his looks.

Saburo hung up the phone and managed to get out of bed. He stepped around the random mess that took up most of his apartment, making his way to the shower.

'Like I need even more stuff' Saburo thought to himself.

After getting cleaned up, he took a few moments and got back to checking his messages. A couple new projects on the custom hardware boards got him making a list of things to get. He wrote down all the parts he didn't have and headed out the door.

Daisuke's place was about a twenty minute walk from his home. It was a nice afternoon, clear skies and warm weather. Saburo didn't mind walking, of course he didn't have much of a choice seeing he didn't own a car. Fortunately Daisuke did, so if he needed to go farther out his friend would gladly give him a ride. Mostly they both chose to walk. It was cheaper and just about everything they needed was close by.

He arrived at Daisuke's apartment building. Quite similar to his, mostly rented out to students and people who didn't need much room to live. A few floors up, a walk down the hallway and he was at his friend's home. He knocked on the door.

"Come in!" he heard Daisuke say from the other side.

Saburo removed his shoes, opened the door and stepped in. It was much cleaner than his own. Of course, Daisuke didn't have the tech obsession that he did. Just a normal college student's room: a bed, TV, and a few books tossed about.

"Welcome back Saburo!" a female voice said.

"Hey Yukimi! How is everything?"

"All systems are functioning perfectly!" she replied.

Yukimi is Daisuke's mobile persocom. Short fiery red hair, crystal blue eyes and clothing to match. Daisuke knew he didn't have much room in his apartment, so Yukimi was a perfect choice. Smaller than a computer, portable and capable of doing all the online work he needed.

"There you are!" Daisuke said walking into the living room, "Are we ready?"

"Ready as I'll ever be." Saburo responded.

"Great! All I need to do is grab Yukimi and my keys, then we're outta here."

Daisuke gestured to Yukimi as she jumped on his shoulder and grabbed his keys off the table. The three headed downstairs and outside. Saburo walked a bit ahead and started heading out to the street.

"Where are you going?" Daisuke asked

"Where do you think I'm going?"

"Get over here. We're taking the car this time."

Saburo looked at him strangely. "The car? It's not very far from here."

"It is when you're hauilng three computers back to your place. We're driving."

Saburo snickered a bit, remembering that day. 'Yeah, that was a bit of a pain' he thought to himself.

They load up in Daisuke's car and head out.


	3. Saburo's New Challenge

Ch. 2 - Saburo's new challenge.

"We have reached our destination." Yukimi said as she pointed towards the marketplace. "You may park there."

"Thank you Yukimi." Daisuke replied, parking in the place she suggested.

"Now you know Yukimi, that if I get a ticket for illegally parking... I am going to have to sell you to afford it."

"You're not funny!" Yukimi sneered

Daisuke chuckled. "I am only kidding. I wouldn't sell you, you know that."

"Hmmph!" Yukimi crossed her arms and looked away.

Saburo stepped out of the car and closed the door. "Enough about selling, let's start buying!"

Daisuke gave a nod of approval, and they headed into the market.

"Before we start having fun, we need to get the essentials first. I need to buy food and a few other items." Daisuke noted. Saburo agreed and headed towards the grocery store. Yukimi listed off the items Daisuke needed and he picked them up. Meat, vegetables, bread, spices and other ingredients for the week's meals. Saburo had a 'different' approach to food. One that included ramen and a 24 pack of soda.

When they got to the checkout, Daisuke noted Saburo's items. He smiled while shaking his head. "Ahh, Saburo. I'll never understand."

"What? Easy to make, easy on the wallet, what's not to like?"

"Do you ever eat any REAL food?"

"Only when it's made for me. I couldn't cook if my life depended on it."

They both bought their groceries and headed back to the car to drop them off. Afterwards Saburo smiled as he headed off towards the electronics shops. Daisuke eventually caught up to Saburo, finding him in a back corner searching through old beat up cardboard boxes of computer parts. After a few minutes, Saburo concluded that he hadn't found anything of interest.

"Oh well. Win some, lose some." Saburo said.

"There's still the persocom shop. Wanna take a look?"

They walked out of the store and headed to the persocom shop. Outside they had a display of their latest models. One of the persocoms stepped towards them as they headed towards the door. "Welcome!" said the persocom, smiling and opening the door for them. The store's manager quickly walked up as they entered.

"Welcome! How may I help you? Looking for a new persocom? We have the latest models ready to go! We also have plenty of upgrades!"

Daisuke started talking to the manager about extra parts for Yukimi while Saburo walked up and down the aisles. He would occasionally stop to read the spec sheets on persocoms that caught his eye. Eventually he made his way to the back of the store, where the replacement parts are kept. He looked back to the front to see Daisuke and the manager still talking it up.

Saburo glanced over the parts, seeing if any processors or memory could be of use to him. As he walked by one of the shelves, a purple light got his attention. It was faint, but it pierced through the darkness. He walked through the dimly lit stockroom, looking for the source of the light.

"Huh? Where is that coming from?"

Saburo stopped when he realized what it was. It was the reflection off the eyes of a persocom. He looked back again towards the front. 'How long are they going to keep at that?' he thought. He turned back towards the persocom, who was curled into a ball in the corner of some shelves.

'Well, as long as they are busy, I can take a closer look' Saburo started thinking to himself. He started to step closer 'Why in the world is a persocom balled up in a corner like that?'

The persocom's head moved, her eyes locked on Saburo.

Saburo jumped back 'It's... on?'

After a moment, he started walking forward again. The persocom followed his movements as he got closer.

"Hello?"

The persocom said nothing.

"Are you okay?"

Still nothing.

"Can you move?"

The persocom looked down for a second, then slowly started to stand up. Saburo got his first good look: a female persocom, purple eyes with shoulder length hair, a bit shorter than him with small, stout ears. She was also a bit beat up. Scuff marks on her skin and torn clothing. Saburo grew quite confused at this. 'What is up with this persocom?'

"Daisuke! Come here for a sec!"

He and the manager walked back to where Saburo was standing. "What's up?" Daisuke asked.

Saburo only pointed to the persocom. A confused look came over Daisuke's face as he turned to his friend.

"She was curled up next to some shelves, still on." Saburo said.

"It's a persocom we found outside our front door one morning." The manager explained. " Nobody claimed it and there is no owner information. She won't talk and I haven't the slightest idea why. We kept her in the back stockroom where she wouldn't interfere with customers."

"How long has she been there?"

"About two weeks. She won't respond much to any of our employees. I'm surprised you convinced her to stand up. Honestly, I wish I could get rid of her. Soon I will probably send her to the scrap pile. She's..."

"How much?" Saburo interrupted

"How much what?" asked the manager with a puzzled look on his face.

"How much for that persocom?"

"Are you serious?"

"How. Much."

"Umm... well... I'll make you a deal. If you can convince her to leave the store, she's yours."

"Daisuke." Saburo said with a grin on his face, "Get the car."


	4. Confusion and Convincing

Ch. 3 - Confusion and Convincing

It took Saburo almost half an hour to even convince the persocom to let him come near her. Every time he would step closer, she would back into her corner. 'This is going nowhere. She won't let me get anywhere close to her. Maybe she would react better to another persocom.' he thought.

"Yukimi, can you help me out?"

"Sure thing!" she responded cheerfully.

Saburo held his hand up to Daisuke's shoulder and Yukimi jumped on. He turned to the persocom, who had backed even further into the corner of the shelves, and held his hand outstretched with Yukimi standing on his palm. She stared at Yukimi for a moment then slowly started walking forward.

"It's like she's... frightened." Saburo said.

"Don't be silly" replied the manager. "Persocoms don't have feelings, they can't be afraid."

Saburo turned to look at the manager. "She's acting like a tormented animal, and I am sure that she wasn't programmed that way. I don't know, it's definitely strange." He looked back to see the persocom only inches away from his hand.

"They won't hurt you, Saburo and Daisuke are friends!" Yukimi said looking up into the persocom's purple eyes. She started twirling around in Saburo's hand, "Look at Yukimi, I am in perfect condition!"

This seemed to ease the persocom. She walked out of the stockroom and into the main area of the store. Saburo followed her and placed his hand on her back to direct her out to Daisuke's car. She jumped slightly when he touched her but relaxed and started walking with Saburo outside. The persocom that had greeted them held the door open again, looked at Saburo's "new" persocom and said "Congratulations on your purchase of model number..." the persocom's eyes glazed over. "Model number not found, I'm sorry." she continued.

Daisuke walked over to his car, got in and unlocked the doors. Saburo opened the back door and held his hand out to the mystery persocom.

"Hop in." He said, smiling.

She stopped for a second, then walked towards the car and sat down in the back seat. Saburo sat in the front and closed the door. They pulled off and headed back to Saburo's apartment building.

"Do you have a name?" Saburo asked looking back at the persocom. She said nothing. "How about an owner?" Nothing again. "Well, what's your model number?" Silence.

"You never could get a woman to talk to you." Daisuke said, snickering under his breath.

"Yukimi's right, you aren't funny."

Daisuke laughed out loud as they pulled up to Saburo's building.

He stepped out of the car and opened the back door. His persocom stepped out. "This is our home. Well, not all of it." he said. She looked up, her eyes glazed for a second recording the location.

"Well, I'll leave you to it! Let me know what you find." Daisuke closed the window and drove off. She watched as they left.

"Come on, let's get you inside."


	5. Reia

Ch 4 - Reia

After a quick trip up the stairs, they had arrived at Saburo's apartment door. "Here we are!" he said. "Be careful though, it's a total mess." He unlocked the door, cut on the lights and showed her in. She tried to walk around and get a look at the place but had trouble with all the parts scattered on the floor.

"Sorry there isn't much room to move around." He sat the groceries down and started picking up his projects and stacking them in a corner. "There we are, that should be a bit better. Some of these parts can go in the garbage, hopefully you can help me with that." She nodded and walked to the pile he just made and reached out to pick one of the boards up.

"Not now, we need to take care of a few things first. Come sit on the bed." She walked over and sat on the edge while Saburo opened his closet. "First thing we need to take care of are your clothes. They're torn, dirty and frilly dresses are more of a hindrance than a help. We'll get you something better. I don't have any clothes for girls obviously, but you might be able to fit something I have in here."

He rifled through his clothes and found a pair of jeans that used to fit him. He patted his stomach and sighed, knowing that he has packed on a few extra pounds. 'Well, at least they'll get some use again', he thought to himself. He grabbed one of his shirts off a hanger and turned to hand them to her. "Here you go, try these..."

He was stopped mid sentence, seeing the persocom wearing only a bra and underwear.

"... on?" he continued.

He handed the clothes to her and spun around to give her a chance to dress. 'Well that's never happened before' he thought to himself, cracking a slight smile. A few moments later and he felt a tap on his shoulder. Saburo turned around to see her dressed in the clothes he gave her. Faded jeans and a black shirt that said "geek." A perfect fit, too.

"Excellent!" He gave her a thumbs up. She smiled and sat back on the bed.

"Okay, on to more challenging issues." He sat in his rolling chair and kicked himself over to his console. "Let's see if we can figure out a bit more about you, shall we?" A few searches brought up a couple of free persocom diagnostic programs. He took a few minutes to read through the documentation provided. Having never owned a persocom, he was a bit unsure how to access their systems.

"Diagnostics cable?" he said to himself, reading his screen. A tap at his shoulder again and he turned around. She pointed to her left ear, opened it, zipped out a cable and handed it to him. He raised his eyebrows a bit in surprise, "Well, solves that problem. Hmmm, you might want to lie down, it's the only way this will reach."

She laid back on the bed, her head next to his chair. He plugged her into his main computer and typed in the command to run the program.

"Ready?" he asked? She nodded her head.

"Okay, here we go!" He hit enter and the program started. The persocom's eyes glazed over as white streaks crossed them. Saburo grabbed a soda and propped his feet on his desk. 'I hope this doesn't take too long, I'd like to see what she can do.' Several hours passed. Finally the computer finished it's run and she came out of her trance. He unplugged her and handed back the cable. She zipped it back in and closed her ear.

"Now, let's see. Ah! Your name is Reia!" She nodded. "Alright, Reia it is then." Saburo continued down the list. He was listed as her current owner and there were a couple of extra programs installed by what he guessed was her previous owner. Just a few cooking and cleaning addons, nothing out of the ordinary.

He kept reading and running through all the information. "Okay, here we go. Systems diagnostics." Processor was fully functional, no damage to the hard drive, all motor functions intact, and then...

"That explains it."

Reia's voice circuitry was heavily damaged. The diagnostic program reported that it was totally non functional. He turned to her, "So that's why you were giving me the cold shoulder." She was sitting up, turned away from the computer.

"Hey, what's up?" he asked, putting his hand on her shoulder. She turned around slowly and pointed at the computer screen displaying the diagnostics. "So?" he replied. She slowly turned back around, facing away from him.

"Hold on a sec, I have an idea." Saburo flopped on the bed and started looking underneath. "Here it is!" He pulled out an old PDA and powered it on. He clicked on a doodling program with the stylus. "It still works, great!" He flipped over on his back, looking up at Reia. He handed her the PDA and stylus. She gave a sort of confused look as she tipped her head to one side.

"Use this to write what you want to say. It has a hip pouch somewhere so you can keep it with you."

She took it and started writing. She then turned it towards Saburo. It read "Am I useless?" He sat up and looked at her. "Why would you think something like that? No, no you aren't." She pointed towards the computer screen again.

Saburo paused for a second. "Is that the reason your last owner ditched you?"

Reia doodled again. "That was one of the reasons."

He shook his head. "His loss."

Saburo looked up at the clock. "Ugh. This sucks, I have to go to work tomorrow! GAAH!" Reia tipped her head to the side. "Time to get to bed. I usually stay up stupid late, but I have to work the morning shift tomorrow." She nodded and started doodling. "Should I go over to the corner and enter standby mode?"

"Ummm... that would spook the hell out of me. You can share the bed if you want." He grabs the boards that were on the bed and sets them aside. "Usually I just keep parts there. It would be nice to sleep next to something that won't scratch me to pieces or fall over on me." Reia stood up, pulled back the sheets and slipped in. Saburo took off his shirt and tossed it over his chair, activated his alarm program and curled up for the night.

"We'll talk more after work, okay?"

Reia nodded and went into standby mode.

Saburo turned off his desk light and settled into bed. He stayed awake for a while thinking about his newly found persocom.

'Why is she acting so... human?' he began thinking. 'Maybe it's just me, I've never owned a persocom so I don't know much about how they act, but at the shop she seemed terrified and the way she acted when I found out that her voice circuitry was damaged.'

"Persocoms don't have feelings, they can't be afraid." The words of the store manager ran through his head. 'They are machines, but how long before they catch up to us?'

'How did she get damaged? Was it defective hardware or did someone do that to her?'

He thought about it all until he fell asleep.


	6. Questions

Ch. 5 - Questions...

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

WHAM!

Saburo pulled the sheets off his head. He held up his hand to block the morning sunlight from his eyes to get a good look at the clock. 'Good, got a couple hours to lay here'. Rubbing his eyes, he turned to look at Reia who was staring at him, her purple eyes shining like crystal in the sunlight.

"Well, you're up early." he said. Reia pointed to the computer Saburo set up with his alarm.

"Yeah, I hate that damn thing too."

Saburo sat up, stretching and yawning and got out of bed. He walked over to the door and picked up the groceries he bought the day before. Sitting the groceries on the kitchen counter, he opened the case of soda, pulled one out and then put the rest in the fridge.

"I'm going to shower and get ready for work." Saburo said, cracking his soda open. "If you need anything, just ask." He opened his closet door and pulled out clothes to wear for work. He works as a stock manager for an appliance store, so his usual jeans and t-shirts were acceptable work attire. Saburo tossed them over his shoulder and walked to the bathroom, closing it behind him.

He stood in front of the hot water letting it run down him, his mind still on Reia. "I wonder if anyone on the persocom message boards will know how to fix her." he thought out loud. "Still like to know how she got that way..." He rambled on for a few minutes as he washed up, then shut off the water. "Even if she can't be fixed, I'm going to keep her." Saburo pulled the curtain back and reached for his bath towel.

He looked up and saw Reia standing in front of him.

"AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!" Saburo yelled as he wrapped himself up in the bath curtain, almost pulling it off the rod. Reia fell back, startled by Saburo's reaction to her. She caught herself on the sink and regained her footing.

"Wha... What do you need?" Saburo said, still wrapped in the curtain.

Reia held out her PDA. Saburo wormed one of his arms out and took it. "Would you like some breakfast?" was written. He handed it back to her. "Yeah... that would be great... there's some... some ramen on the kitchen table. That will do just fine." Reia nodded and left the bathroom. Saburo pushed the door shut and unwrapped himself from the curtain.

"Might be a good idea to teach her what to do and not to do first."

Saburo got dressed and walked back into the main room of his apartment. A few seconds later, Reia came up to him with a hot bowl of ramen in her hands. He thanked her, took the bowl and sat down to eat. She backed away and headed back to the kitchen to clean up.

"Hold on Reia, come here for a second."

She turned around and walked towards him slowly. Saburo looked up and noticed that she had that same expression on her face when he saw her at the persocom shop. He put his ramen down and stood up. Reia was standing still, looking down at the floor,

"Reia." She did not move.

"Reia, look at me." he said in a concerned voice, She kept looking down.

Saburo put his hand under her chin and lifted her head to look at him. "You're acting like I'm gonna throw you back out there." She looked back down, wrote on her PDA and showed it to him.

"I did something wrong." it said.

"The only thing you did was show me that I can't climb a tile wall."

Reia looked up and tipped her head. "Nevermind, just knock next time." he said, smiling at her. She hugged Saburo tightly then headed back to the kitchen. "Great ramen by the way." he said. Reia turned around and smiled, then went back to cleaning up.

Saburo sat back down and continued eating. 'Okay, this is no longer just my imagination.' he thought. Grabbing his keyboard, he looked up info on some persocom message boards. Finding what looked like the most popular, he registered a username and posted about how Reia was acting. 'Hopefully I should get an answer by the time I get home from work'.

He spent the rest of his time performing more searches with little results. Eventually he decided to just wait for replies to his message on the persocom board.

"Reia, I'm going now. I should be back around two o'clock." She walked up and nodded. He handed her a slip of paper. "This is the address of where I work. If something goes wrong, you can find me here. I've also written down the phone number, but I don't think that will be of much use to you." She nodded again, pulled out her PDA and wrote.

"Is there anything you would like me to do?"

"I dunno. You can make yourself at home if you want. Not sure how persocoms pass the time, there's the TV, some video games and feel free to get online. Do what you like." he said. She looked around and nodded with a smile. "Maybe we can do something after I get home." She smiled at him again.

"Okay, catch you later. Don't get into too much trouble!"


	7. A Good Day at Work

Ch. 6 - A Good Day at Work

"So, heard you got a new persocom yesterday."

"Yep."

"Is she cute?"

"Yep."

"How much did you end up paying?"

"Nothing. She was free."

"How in the hell did you manage that?"

"It's a bit of a long story."

It didn't take long for all of Saburo's coworkers to find out about his persocom. Almost all of them owned persocoms themselves, so they didn't crowd around him and ask hundreds of questions like the kid at school that got the newest video game. He usually didn't like being the center of attention, so he didn't mention much about it. That didn't mean that she wasn't on his mind. He thought about how she acted scared over the smallest mistakes, about her past, and most importantly, what in the world was he going to do with her tonight. He thought about taking her out, but he hadn't the slightest clue where.

'She's a persocom, that rules out any type of dinner. Movies? Shopping? Just a walk around downtown?' He ran ideas through his mind as he moved shipping pallets in and out of the warehouse. Even human girls were all but foreign ground to him so he was at a total loss. He remembered the last date he was on and shuddered. 'She'd leave on her own if THAT ever happened again.' he thought.

"So what's her name?"

The voice startled him, almost causing him to drop the box he was carrying. Between work and his thoughts, he wasn't very focused on the world around him.

"Reia." he said, shifting his grip on the box and sliding it onto a shelf.

"Not bad. What's she look like."

"What in the..." He pointed to the pallet he had rolled in a few moments ago. "I've got to get all of those shelved and catalogged. Can it wait until lunch?"

"Fine, fine. But I wanna know."

"Why... Never mind." Saburo nodded and went back to work. His mind wandered back on Reia, still wondering what he was going to do tonight. He decided that shopping wasn't such a bad idea. Her dress was destroyed and she couldn't keep wearing the same jeans and shirt every day.

Saburo looked up and saw his boss coming in. "Lunch time, people!" He had lost complete track of time. He also hadn't noticed that he had taken care of almost all the pallets that came in that morning.

"Nice work, Saburo! I knew there was a reason I kept you around." his boss said with a slight smile.

"Thanks boss, I knew there was a reason I worked here."

Saburo put the last box on the shelf and clocked out for lunch. He headed outside where everyone hangs out and chats. It was a small area behind the warehouse with a few chairs and a table. Two of his coworkers are already outside and pull up a chair for him.

"Okay, start talking."

He sits down and kicks his feet up on the table. "Well, what do you want to know?"

"What's she like and how did you get her for free?" they ask.

"Well, her name is Reia. She was left at the local persocom shop by someone, the owner didn't even know how she got there. Said she was lying outside one morning. They were going to just scrap her, but he told me that if I could get her to leave that I could have her. Really strange."

"Get her to leave?" one of his coworkers asked with a look of confusion.

"Like I said, really strange."

"What's she look like?"

"She's a bit shorter than me." Saburo said, holding his hand up to his chest to show a size comparison. "Crystal purple eyes, short dark hair and small ears, kinda like..."

"Like this?" his boss interrupted.

"Huh?" Saburo said, turning around.

"Reia!" He jumped up. She waved and walked over to him. "What are you doing here? Is everything okay?" She nodded and held out a bowl covered in plastic wrap, filled with ramen. "What... how... but... did..." He was at a loss for words. "How did you get here?"

"Guilty as charged" a familiar voice said, coming from behind his boss.

"Daisuke? You too?"

"I stopped by your place to drop off a couple of cd's you let me borrow a while back. She let me in and asked if I could bring her by here. She was quite insistent, too. Since I didn't have anything else to do for the day, why not? She whipped up some lunch for you too."

"I noticed. This is definitely something else." He looked over at Reia, smiled and said "This is great, thanks a lot!"

He looked back at Daisuke. "You aren't trying to pick up my women, are you?" They both laughed for a minute. Reia looked at him and tipped her head to the side. Saburo shook his head with a barely controllable smile, trying not to start laughing again. "Don't mind us. Oh, that reminds me..." He turned to his coworkers. "Guys, this is Reia. Reia, these are the degenerates I work with."

"Hey, hey, hey!" they said, laughing and throwing things at him.

"Well, I'd better get Reia back to your place so you can eat and get back to work." Daisuke said. Saburo nodded. He leaned over to Reia and whispered "Want to go out tonight?" Her face lit up. "We can get you some new clothes and do whatever." She nodded and gave Saburo a big hug.

"Alright, I'll catch you two later. Hey Daisuke, you mind doing me a favor?"

"Sure, whatcha need?"

"Can you drive us out tonight? Got a couple of things to do."

"Sounds like fun, what time?"

"How about around six?"

"I'll be there."

Reia waved to Saburo's cowokers and left with Daisuke. Saburo sat back down and began munching on his ramen. He looked back up at his coworkers and said "That's Reia."

"Wow, she really is cute." one of them said.

Saburo smiled. "Yep."


	8. Back Home

Ch. 7 - Back Home

"I'm back!" Saburo said, entering his apartment. Reia was lying on the bed. She sat up and waved to him with a smile on her face. Saburo looked over at her, "That sounds like a good idea about now." he said, and flopped down on the bed.

"What a day! Never seen that much stock come in on a single day." Reia showed him her PDA, "Is that good?" Saburo nodded, "Business must be doing great." he replied.

She started writing again. "Was lunch good too?"

"It was great. Thanks for dropping by, it made my day much better!" Reia smiled.

"By the way, Daisuke will be by in a couple hours to pick us up. I know I need a shower, and you might want to clean up a bit." he said, pointing at some of the scuff marks on Reia's skin. She looked at herself and gave a nod of approval. "I assume you know how, right?" he asked. She nodded again.

Saburo sat up, walked to his closet and pulled out a bath towel. "Here you go, this one can be yours." He handed the towel to her. She nodded again and headed towards the bathroom. Saburo sat down in his rolling chair and kicked back. He waited until he heard the water running, then logged back on to the persocom board he had posted to earlier that day.

Apparently he had stirred up quite the debate. Several members were going back and forth about persocoms with emotions, some event that happened a couple of months back and whether or not either was true. Some of the posts got a bit nasty.

"Bah, this is pointless!" he said, tossing his keyboard on the desk. Saburo got up and made his way to the kitchen. He grabbed himself another soda and walked back to his computer. He was stopped halfway, noticing that the bathroom door was barely open, steam pouring out. Saburo couldn't resist, he peeked in and saw a female outline in the haze of the steam. He couldn't see much more, but he kept looking. The water stopped and Saburo rushed back to his computer. As he sat down, he noticed that a window had appeared. "You have 1 private message(s)." it said. Saburo clicked on it and opened the message.

"I may have the answers you are looking for. Maybe we can meet in person." The message was from a user simply calling himself 'M'. Saburo clicked on reply and wrote back. "I'm listening, what did you have in mind?" A few moments later, the same window appeared again. He clicked it. "How does tomorrow around 8pm sound?"

Saburo looked up when he heard the bathroom door squeak open. She was wearing her same jeans and shirt. Reia looked over at Saburo with a smile. "Great, all cleaned up. Much better," he said. "How about a change of clothes though?" He went over to his closet, and searched through his clothes. "Well, I can't help you with the pants, but how about another shirt?" Reia nodded. "He stepped back and held his hand out towards the closet. "Pick one." She looked back at him, a bit confused. "Go ahead, choose which shirt you want to wear." Reia started looking at all of his shirts, and finally chose one. Saburo walked back over to his computer and spun around in his chair to let Reia change.

"Good shower?" he asked.

A few seconds later, Reia's PDA landed on his bed. Saburo picked it up. "Yes" was written in fairly large letters. Reia tapped him on the shoulder, he turned back around and handed her the PDA back. She started writing again and showed it to him.

"Did you get a good look?"

Saburo's face turned bright red.

"I um... err... I... uh..." he mumbled incoherently. She held her hand over her mouth, trying to cover her smile. Saburo just sat there, still embarrassed and beet red. Reia wrote some more. "Even?" He cracked a slight smile and nodded to her.

"Well, guess it's my turn." He turned back to his computer screen and replied to the message. "Sounds good to me, just send me your address." After clicking send, he logged out. He wasn't sure how Reia would react, so he kept that a bit of a secret until he felt it was right.

Saburo got up and grabbed some clothes for himself and got cleaned up. Afterwards, he found Reia lying on the couch, trying her hand at a video game. His game system was old, so she couldn't plug in directly. It took her a few moments to get used to the controller, but after that she was doing pretty well. He sat next to her and picked up the 2nd player controller and joined in.

"Everything doing okay?" he asked.

She nodded, still concentrating on the video game.

"Can I ask you something?" Reia nodded again.

"What can you tell me about your previous owner?"

The next thing Saburo heard was the sound of the game controller falling to the floor. He looked over at Reia who was frozen stiff with a look of utter fright on her face. "What's wrong?" he asked. The only movement she made was an occasional shaking.

"It's okay, you don't have to tell me." He put his hand on her shoulder. Reia grabbed him tightly and buried her face in his chest. He wrapped his arms around her. "What's the matter? What did I do?" he asked. She looked up at him with that same look, then looked down and wrote something really fast. She held the PDA out. What she wrote was barely legible, but Saburo could make it out.

"Don't give me back to him. Please."

He looked back down at her and laid her head back on his chest. "Not going to happen." He held on to her tightly. 'Good god, what in the hell did he do to you?' he thought to himself. Saburo didn't move, he let her hold on to him for as long as she wanted. He couldn't imagine what her previous owner had done, but it must have been bad. "You're staying with me. I'm not going to give you up to anybody, that I promise." he said, running his fingers through her hair. She held on to him even tighter.

'Was she... abused?' he began thinking. 'Why would someone do that? What kind of degenerate would get his kicks from abusing a persocom?' Saburo got angry at this, envisioning beating whoever did this to within an inch of his life. 'Human or persocom, that's pretty damn sick.'

Saburo's thoughts were interrupted by the phone ringing. He reached over and picked up the handset.

"Hello?"

"You ready?"

He looked down at Reia for a moment. "Yeah, we need to get out of here for a bit."

"Huh?" Daisuke sounded a bit confused at this.

"Don't ask."

"Well okay. Anyway, Yukimi and I are waiting out here for you."

"Alright, we'll be down in a moment."

Saburo hung the phone up. He looked back at her, still holding on to him. "Reia?" he said softly. She looked up at him, seeming to look less afraid. "Daisuke's downstairs, you ready?" She nodded and stood up. As she walked towards the door, Saburo tapped her on the shoulder. Reia stopped and turned around.

"You're staying with me, okay?"

Reia looked up and smiled.

"Now let's go have some fun."


	9. Luna 3

**Author's notes: Thanks for the reviews! I'm trying to keep up at a pace that will help to hold your interest. I'm still developing the story... I know where I want to go, just trying to get there. I hope everyone's liking the direction I'm going. Anyway, here's number 8, enjoy! **

**There will be some familiar faces soon, too.  
**

Ch. 8 - Luna 3

It took Daisuke about twenty minutes to find a place to park. The crowds were uncontrollable. "Wow, this is nuts!" Saburo commented. Daisuke nodded "This place just opened so I thought it would be cool to check it out. I didn't expect a crowd like this though."

"Hey, no problem!" Saburo said, stepping out of the car. He opened the back door for Reia and helped her out. Saburo stared up at the massive building, "How many floors does this place have?" he asked.

"Three." Daisuke replied, placing Yukimi on his shoulder and closing the door.

As they approached the entrance, two young women were handing out maps and flyers for the stores inside. Saburo thanked them and flipped the map open. "They have everything here! Even electronics and persocom shops!" Saburo's eyes grew wide. He then started looking at the clothing stores, which this place had no lack of whatsoever. "What's your clothing of choice?" Saburo asked, handing the map to Reia. She stared blankly at it for a couple of minutes.

"Umm, I don't think persocoms have a clothing preference. They wear what's given to them." Daisuke said, giving his friend a rather strange look.

"Where's the fun in that?" replied Saburo. "If she's going to be wearing them, she should at least have a choice."

They spent a few moments walking through the lower floor of the mall checking out the various stores. Saburo would play catch up to the other three in between window-shopping computer and game stores. Daisuke noticed a bookstore and headed towards it. "You two go ahead, I'll probably be in here for a little while," he said. "Yukimi will be able to locate Reia so I can catch up to you later."

Saburo nodded. "Alright, enjoy!"

Saburo and Reia continued along. On their way back around, Reia tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention. "What's up?" he asked. She handed him her PDA.

"Clothes"

He looked back up and she was already walking into the store. He looked around for a second. "Clothes? The only clothing store here is..." Before Saburo could finish his sentence, Reia had already gone inside. He stood there for a moment, not knowing what to do before silently mouthing the words 'the... lingerie... store...'

"Awww crap... REIA!" He ran into the store, towards Reia who turned around to him, smiled, and held out a see-through purple negligee. Saburo put his hand over his face and pulled it down towards his mouth. She pointed to the nightwear, then to her eyes, showing him they were the same color. Saburo tried saying something, but simply could not find the words. He looked around the store, noticing that almost everyone in there was focused entirely on him and Reia.

He finally pulled himself back together and looked at her. "This is... not what I had in mind." Reia pointed up at a picture on the wall of a woman wearing something similar to what she was holding then pointed to the PDA in Saburo's hand. "These ARE clothes" he tried to explain. "Just not... they're... how do I explain this?" Reia's smile disappeared. Not knowing what to do and simply wanting to leave the situation (and the store), he sighed and put his hand on her shoulder. "Come on." he said, pointing to the register.

'Daisuke's going to have a field day with this one!' he thought to himself, walking to the counter. The lady at the register looked up at Reia, paused for a second then shifted her eyes to Saburo, giving him a weird look. He cracked half a smile and shrugged his shoulders. Reia, handed her the garment and the young lady scanned the tag and read him the total. Saburo pulled out his card and paid. Reia grabbed the bag and Saburo quickly ushered her out of the store.

Once outside, Saburo handed her back the PDA. "Let me choose the store next time." he said with an embarrassed smile. Reia started writing again. "Are these wrong clothes?" He took the PDA and began writing himself, trying to explain without gathering any more attention. "People usually don't buy their persocoms lingerie." Reia paused for a second, then wrote again. "What is lingerie?" Saburo began thinking of how to explain. "They're clothes worn in private, Girls wear them when they want to be intimate with someone." Reia read what Saburo had written. She looked up at him with big, big eyes. He just looked at her, nodded and said "Yeah". He thought about the whole situation and snickered. "Can't say you aren't making my life interesting" he said. "Anyway, let's keep walking around."

As they continued back towards the front of the mall, the persocom shop caught Saburo's attention. "LMI Persocom." he commented. He turned to Reia and pointed to the store. "You mind if they have a look at you." She looked over at the store then gave a nod of approval.

"Welcome, how may I help you?" the salesperson said, standing behind the counter.

"Yeah, I've got a peculiar problem. I acquired a persocom secondhand and I think that there might be some internal damage. Her speech circuitry is not working. Can you look at her?"

"Sure! Diagnostics and inspections are free of charge here." he replied. The salesperson pointed to Reia and asked "Is this the persocom?" Saburo nodded. He walked around from behind the counter and directed Reia to the back of the store. There were several computers and cabling thrown everywhere. The salesman pointed to a chair. "Have a seat there."

Reia sat down as instructed. Saburo found a rolling chair, sat down and kicked himself over next to her. "Does she have to be shut down for this?" he asked. "Only for parts replacements." The salesman walked over to a table and picked up what looked like a pair of screwdrivers. He walked back over to Reia, opened both of her ears and inserted one device in each. He twisted both simultaneously very fast. Reia sat up straight almost immediately. Her ears moved about an inch away from her head and a very faint 'click' was heard. The salesman put his hand on the top of her head and pushed down. A panel on the back of Reia's head slid open. Saburo felt Reia put her hand on his while this was being done. "Are you okay?" he asked. Reia did not move, only shifting her eyes to look at him.

"There's your problem."

Saburo stood up. "What?"

"Come take a look for yourself. The board is cracked." Saburo looked inside, noticing what the salesman was talking about. One of the boards had a large crack in it, going through one of the microprocessors. He pointed at the chip "I assume this is the speech controller." The salesman nodded. Saburo looked at him and asked "What could cause something like this?"

"Something hitting her. Hard. Fortunately, there is no other damage. She will be just fine, except for the inability to talk."

"Is this replaceable?"

"On this model, no. The speech unit is integrated directly into the mainboard. You'd have to replace the entire board and judging by the age, you'd be lucky to find a replacement and even then at a price that wouldn't warrant just buying another persocom altogether."

"Ouch. Okay, that's all I wanted to know."

"She's still got value as a trade-in if you wanted to browse our selection. There are several..."

"No." Saburo interrupted.

The salesman nodded and closed the panel. He slid Reia's ears back into place and with a twist, locked and closed them.

"I assume you sell programs here, right?"

"Of course!" the salesman laughed. "Wouldn't be much of a persocom shop if we didn't."

Saburo nodded. "Do you have any programs on electronics? Components, soldering, identification, things like that?"

The salesman thought for a moment. "Actually I believe we do." He started walking back to the front of the store. Saburo held his hand out to Reia and helped her up. The two followed the salesman down one of the store's aisles, where he was holding a box. "Here it is." Saburo took the box and began reading the back.

'Advanced electronic knowledge. Base level component recognition, logic ICs, microprocessors, analog circuits, technical specifications and data sheets.' he read to himself.

"Alright, that's what I'm talking about." He said with a big smile on his face. He walked back up to the counter where the salesman was waiting for him. He placed the box on the counter and looked back at Reia.

"You said that on this model the board couldn't be replaced." he said.

"That's right" the salesmen replied.

"What model would that be?"

"Luna 3. Actually quite a rare model. The company that made that model was short lived. They released only two persocom models, the Luna and Luna 3. The company went bankrupt shortly after releasing Luna 3, so very few of them made it out to the public. What was their name again... Moonchild? That's it, Moonchild."

"Are you serious?"

"I thought you knew, seeing as how you were adamant about not trading her in. She is an extraordinarily rare persocom. This is actually only the second time I have seen one." He picked up the program and scanned it. "5409.33, please." Saburo pulled out his card and handed it to him. "Thank you very much!" he said, handing Saburo the program and his card.

The two headed back out into the main area of the mall. Saburo was grinning from ear to ear. 'Moonchild Luna 3' were the words running through his head. 'This is so cool!'. Reia tapping his shoulder again interrupted him. He reached for her PDA, still spacing out a bit.

"I can't be fixed." it read. Saburo stopped for a moment and sighed. "No." Reia continued walking, looking at the floor as he went along.

"Now, no more of that."

She looked back up and kept walking alongside Saburo. He noticed an elevator in one of the corners and headed towards it. "I'm lazy." he said. "Going up?" He pressed the up button on the elevator. Noticing that he was away from the crowds, he turned back towards Reia.

"It doesn't matter." he said.

She began writing. "I'm broken."

The elevator door opened and the two stepped in. He quickly pressed the door close button and turned to face her.

"We all are. In one way or another."

She looked back down at the ground. "Hey, don't worry about it. You're doing just fine for me." Reia wrapped her arms around him. Saburo reached his hand out and pressed the emergency stop button.

'This 'M' guy better be good because I have a LOT of questions.' he thought to himself. He looked back down at Reia, who was now staring back up at him. They stayed like that for several minutes, then Saburo felt his mind smacking him back into reality. He pressed the emergency stop button again and looked back down at her. "We are probably making a lot of people mad." he said with a slight laugh. The elevator started moving again. Reia stood up and faced the door.

"We still need to get you some clothes." Saburo noted. Reia nodded with a smile on her face. As the elevator continued up, Saburo started thinking to himself. 'Should I have? But she's a persocom. But...'

He was interrupted by Reia tugging on his shirt. "Huh?" he mumbled, noticing that the doors were open and several people were waiting to get in. He snapped back to reality and followed her out. As he followed her, he sank back into thought.

'Maybe...'


	10. The Past Comes Back

**Author's notes: More of these things? Anyway, I'm getting the story heading the way I want it to.**

**Yes, I will get the next chapter up quick.  
**

Ch. 9 - The Past Comes Back

"Hey, not too bad!" Saburo gave Reia a thumbs up as she walked out of the fitting room wearing cutoff jeans and a black tee. She turned around to let him see how it looked from the back. "I like it!" he said. Reia walked back into the room and came out wearing her own clothes. "Last ones?" Saburo asked. She nodded to him. "Well, five outfits should be a good start."

As they walked out of the store, Saburo heard the familiar voice of his friend calling him. He saw Daisuke fighting his way through the crowds, with Yukimi perched on his shoulder, pointing at them.

"Saburo! Wait up!" Daisuke said, trying to catch his breath.

"Perfect timing, we just finished buying clothes."

"Great! Is there anywhere else you want to go? Have you checked out the persocom store yet?"

"Actually, yes." Saburo replied. "I had the guy there take a look at Reia too."

"Did they find anything?"

"Her circuitry is physically damaged. One of the boards is cracked. Problem is that I cannot replace it without replacing the whole mainboard."

"Did they have the replacement parts?" Daisuke asked.

"No. The guy said that she was a very rare model and that even if I were able to track down the part I needed, it would cost more than a new persocom."

Daisuke nodded. "I expected that much. Anyway, let's keep walking around." Saburo put his arm around Reia. "Ready?" he asked. She smiled and started walking forward with him. "So, where are we going tomorrow?" asked Daisuke. "There's a guy on a message board that wants to meet up with me, said he can help me out." he replied.

"A persocom message board?" Saburo nodded.

"I know a lot of the guys on there, did you get his screen name by chance?"

"Yeah, M. Nothing else, just M."

"HE wants to meet you?" Daisuke asked surprisingly.

"Yeah, why?"

"Well, he's about the..." Daisuke was interrupted by a voice behind them.

"So, you found my persocom." the voice said.

Saburo and Daisuke both turned around to see who it was behind them. He was about Saburo's height, blonde hair and green eyes. He had a sort of mischievous half smile on his face. When Reia turned around a few seconds later, she jumped back and hid behind Saburo, her eyes barely peeking above his shoulder. She grabbed onto his arms and held on tightly.

"I thank you for taking care of her, but now I want her back. Reia, get over here!" Saburo put down his bags and placed his left hand on her waist. He turned his head to the side. "Stay right there." he said.

"Who the hell are you?" Daisuke asked.

He turned to look at Daisuke. "I don't believe I was talking to you."

"Fine, you're talking to me. Now who the hell are you?" Saburo said with a hint of anger in his voice. "All you need to know is that I'm her owner." he replied. "Get over here NOW!" his voice grew louder. Reia cowered behind Saburo, grabbing onto him even tighter. Saburo moved his hand to her back, pulling her closer to him. By now, they had drawn a lot of attention.

"Listen, you need to chill." Saburo said. "I don't know what your problem is but there's no way you're getting her, so you can just go away." The guy smiled. "Alright." he said and took a swing at Saburo. He jumped back quickly to dodge, almost knocking Reia down. "Go with Daisuke!" he told Reia. Saburo stepped forward and swung hard, sending the guy reeling back. He charged Saburo, slamming him into a wall and landing a punch directly to his face. A well placed kick to the stomach by Saburo had the man doubled over.

It didn't take security long to arrive. They separated everyone and began asking questions. Once they realized what they were fighting about, one of the guards approached Reia. "Who is your owner?" the guard asked. Reia looked around for a second, then walked over and stood beside Saburo.

"She's mine damnit!" the young man yelled as he ran towards her. One of the guards grabbed him and pinned him to a wall. Another guard looked at her. "Okay, we're gonna get the answer now." He pulled out a small device and reached for Reia's ear. She stepped back and looked over at Saburo. He nodded to her and said "It's okay." The guard opened one of her ears and plugged the device in. A few seconds later, the guard asked "Alright, which one of you is Saburo?" Saburo pulled out his wallet and handed the guard his ID. He unplugged his device from Reia and handed Saburo his ID back. "I'm sorry of the inconvenience. You are free to go." Saburo nodded. "What about my friend?"

The guard pointed to Daisuke. "Him?"

"Yes."

He waved his hand to the other guard who let Daisuke go. He walked over to Saburo. "I think now is a good time to get home." he said. "I couldn't agree more." replied Saburo. "Reia, let's go." He picked up his bags and placed his other arm around her. One of the mall's representatives approached them as they were leaving. "I'm sorry for the troubles, that man will not be allowed to return here. If there's anything I can do, just..."

Saburo interrupted. "You don't have to apologize for someone else's actions."

"Thank you, thank you very much." the man said.

Daisuke opened his car's trunk and Saburo put his bags inside. Daisuke noticed the black bag from the lingerie store as he was closing he trunk. "Something I ought to know?" he asked. Reia turned away and walked towards the car door, leaving Saburo to explain. His anger faded as he almost fell out laughing at his friend's expression. "I forgot to tell you, Reia's going to dance for us!" Reia turned around immediately, wide eyed with a confused expression. Saburo started laughing hysterically.

"Ahhhhh... I needed that." Saburo said, pulling himself back together. "Let's get outta here."

As they drove out of the parking lot, Daisuke's confusion could no longer be contained. "Alright, who was that guy?"

Saburo sighed. "Apparently it was Reia's previous owner."

"Do you know him?"

"No, and I don't want to either."

The remainder of the ride was very quiet. As they approached Saburo's apartment, Daisuke broke the silence. "When did you want me to drop by tomorrow?" he asked. "I'll give you a call." Saburo replied. Daisuke stopped in front of the main door and pulled the trunk lever. Saburo and Reia stepped out and gathered their things. Before heading up, Saburo stuck his head in the passenger window.

"Thanks."

"Anytime, you know that."

With that, Daisuke drove off towards home. Saburo and Reia made their way up to his apartment. He opened the door and let Reia in. Saburo closed the door behind him and sat the bags down on the couch. When he turned around, Reia grabbed him and held on tight. He put his arms around her, pulling her in.

"Tell me what happened. Tell me who he is." Saburo said. He sat her down in front of his computer, knowing that she would be typing a lot.

"His name is Ushio..."


	11. Reia's Story

Ch. 10 - Reia's Story

He didn't care about us. He only bought us to serve him. If he broke one of us, he'd just go and buy another.

"He has more?"

Yes. There were five of us but don't know if they are still there.

"What do you mean?"

He did not stand for any imperfections. If we did not do something exactly as he wanted, we were... "dealt with".

"What about you? How did you wind up at the shop?"

I was his oldest persocom, I served him for many months. Most of my days were spent cleaning his home, dusting the same pieces of furniture over and over, picking up the messes from his night parties and preparing meals for him. The only times I wasn't serving him where the hours I spent recharging.

One evening while cleaning, I accidentally tipped over a crystal figurine. It was one of his favorites. I was not fast enough to catch it before it shattered on the floor. He came running into the room and noticed the pieces scattered all over.

I knew what was about to happen...

Before I could say anything, he had thrown me to the ground. He screamed as he kicked me. "Useless!" he yelled. "Worthless pile of scrap!" He just kept kicking. I curled up, trying to absorb the blows as best as I could. When he became tired, he dragged me across the house, opened the basement door and threw me down the stairs.

That's when I broke.

When I reached the bottom of the stairs, my head slammed on the last step as I hit the floor. My diagnostics showed that my speech circuitry was not operational. I tried speaking, but nothing happened. I knew if he discovered that I was damaged, that my fate would be even worse.

"How did you end up at the persocom store where I found you?"

I ran. I waited until late at night and I escaped. I heard his screams grow fainter as I ran away. I didn't stop, I couldn't stop. I knew if he caught me that I would end up like the others. I ran for two days until I reached the city. I wandered across the shop after searching for somewhere to stay. With nowhere else to go, I stood in front of that shop until the next morning. The owner took me inside, tried to get answers from me. He couldn't understand why I didn't say anything. I had no way of telling him why. He didn't know anything about us besides the best way to make money so he couldn't figure out what was wrong. He put me in the back stockroom where I stayed for two weeks, only coming out long enough to recharge. The other workers there would occasionally try to talk to me, but only wound up forgetting I was there.

Then you found me.

"Like the others? What happened to the others?"

They were torn apart or destroyed in whatever way entertained him and his friends.

"I thought you were abandoned. Why didn't you tell me?"

You may have given me back to him had you known. I didn't want to go back.

"sigh You don't need to tell me any more."

Saburo stood up and walked around for a moment. Confused, astounded, angry, he didn't know what to think or what to say. What could he say? What should he do? Reia approached him, holding out her PDA. Saburo took it and read what it said. "Are you upset?"

He handed it back to her. "Yes, but not at you."

She turned around to go sit on the bed. Saburo followed behind and sat next to her. "Look" he said. "You didn't have to worry. There's no way in hell I would have given you back. Not to a person like that." Reia looked up at him with a slight smile on her face. "He's just some spoiled kid that doesn't respect what he has. I expect he'll get his soon enough."

A few moments later, the phone rang. Saburo fell back on his bed and grabbed the phone off the nightstand. "Hello?" he answered.

"Hey, it's me. Just calling to see if you are alright."

"Yeah, no problem. He couldn't hit for crap." Daisuke started laughing.

"I just had to make sure."

"Hey, do you mind dropping by for a bit?" Saburo asked.

"Sure, what's up?"

"Just need to talk."

"I'll be over in a minute." Daisuke replied.

Saburo tossed the phone back on the charging stand and sat up. "I'm gonna talk with Daisuke for a bit. I'll be downstairs if you need me, okay?" Reia nodded, taking a few seconds to write. "Are you going to keep me?" she asked. "No doubt." he replied.

She wrote more. "I will enter standby while you are out."

"Bit early isn't it? You can if you want though."

"Is there something I can do?"

"Well, you can hang your clothes in the closet." Saburo walked over, opened his closet and slid his clothes to one side. "There, you can put them over here." She nodded. "You don't HAVE to, but if you feel energetic, go for it." She tipped her head at this.

There was a knock at the door. "I'll be out in a second" Saburo said. He walked over to Reia, still sitting on the bed. "I promised that you were staying here, right?" he said, running his fingers through her hair. She nodded. "Then there's no need to worry, right?" She nodded again. He bent over and kissed her lightly on the forehead. "I'll be back in a little bit."

"What's up?" Daisuke asked as Saburo opened the door. He stepped outside and pulled the door shut behind him. "Come on, let's sit outside." The two made their way down the stairs and sat on the curb outside the complex.

"Did you talk to Reia?" Daisuke asked.

"Yeah, and that's why I wanted to talk to you."

Daisuke nodded. "Sounds like I'm in for quite a story." He pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and pulled one out. He then handed the pack to Saburo, who did the same. "I thought you quit." Saburo said.

Daisuke lit his smoke and tossed the lighter to Saburo. "I thought you did

too." he replied.

"Days like this man..." Saburo said, lighting his own.

"So, what's up?" he asked.

"That was in fact her last owner, but you already guessed that." Daisuke nodded again. "The reason she can't talk is because he beat the crap out of her."

"Are you serious?" Daisuke said, pulling on his cigarette.

"Kicked her and threw her down a flight of stairs."

"What in the... why would he do that?"

"Because he's abusive and rich. He can afford to buy new persocoms every time he breaks one. According to Reia, that's pretty common." Daisuke just stared at him. "Also, she didn't get dropped off at the shop, she ran."

"Huh?" he asked. Saburo just nodded, blowing out a stream of smoke.

"Yeah, she literally ran away. She found the shop and just waited there until the manager took her in. I don't know if that means he is legally still hers or what. I'm not going to give her back, but can they force me to?"

"I don't see how. You picked her up from a legitimate persocom shop and you are registered as her owner. She's yours now."

"I hope so. I knew something was up with her from the beginning. How she acted in the shop was my first sign, but she would act afraid whenever she thought she did something wrong. That's why she has that purple negligee... I didn't want to give her the impression that I was going to treat her like that guy did."

"Purple... negligee?" Daisuke asked with a half confused look.

"The black bag you pointed out. She went in that store thinking that it was a clothing store."

"Uh huh." he said trying not to laugh.

"What should I do about her? I know I'll eventually run into him again, and I can't keep getting into fistfights in public."

"Do what you're doing now. Take care of her. The rest will fall into place as it should."

"I suppose so. Hopefully the guy we're seeing tomorrow can help me out."

"I imagine he will." Daisuke said. "Anyway, it is getting a bit late and unlike you, I need sleep."

"Alright, thanks for stopping by to listen."

"You know it's never a problem."

Saburo stood up and walked back towards his apartment door. He turned back to Daisuke who was heading back home. "I'll get ahold of you tomorrow." he said. "I'll be home later in the afternoon, so call me then." Daisuke replied. Saburo made his way back up the stairs to his door.

Reia was laying on the bed, she had entered standby mode. 'It's been a long day, maybe she has the right idea.' he thought. Saburo took off his shirt and tossed it over his chair, as usual. He pulled back the sheets and slid into bed. For a few moments, he stayed up just looking at Reia. He lightly ran his fingers across the edge of her ear while she laid there motionless.

'I won't let him hurt you again.'


	12. A Meeting of 'M'inds

Ch.11 - A Meeting of 'M'inds

Saburo ducked behind a small bush. He reloaded his pistol while deciding what to do next. Come out guns blazing or sit in hiding? 'I can't just sit here and wait to die!' he thought to himself. This was it, now or never. He jumped up and started shooting. Before he knew it, he was lying on the ground, a slug went straight through his chest.

'Player two wins!'

"Okay, you are getting a bit too good at this." he said, sitting the controller down. Reia just smiled and shrugged her shoulders. Saburo looked up at the clock. "6:32. We have a little bit of time left. Another round?" She tipped her head then grabbed her PDA and started writing.

"What are we doing today?"

"We're going to meet someone. He's very good with persocoms I've been told."

Reia nodded. She wrote some more. "Another round." Saburo picked up his controller and started the game. "I'll win one soon enough." he said with a slight chuckle.

Twenty minutes later... 'Player two wins!'

Saburo sighed. "Okay, I know when I've been beaten." He looked at the clock again. "Time to give Daisuke a call." Reia grabbed the phone and passed it to him. Saburo dialed and waited for Daisuke to pick up.

"Hello?" Daisuke said.

"You ready?"

"Almost. Got to finish up some study work and I'll be on my way."

"Cool. Do you know where this guy is at?"

"Yes, I've been there a couple of times."

"Sounds good. I'll be waiting."

"Later on."

Saburo pressed the hangup button and tossed the phone on the bed. "I'd better get some clean clothes on." he said. Reia turned her PDA towards him a few seconds later. "Me too?" she asked. "Sure, put on one of your new outfits." Saburo smiled. She nodded and walked over to the closet and picked out her clothes then went to the bathroom to change. While she was changing, Saburo grabbed a clean pair of pants and a shirt to wear. He quickly changed while Reia was still in the bathroom. A few moments later the phone rang. He cannonballed himself on the bed and grabbed it.

"I'm on my way. Be waiting outside." Daisuke said.

"Sounds good. Catch ya then."

He placed the phone on the charger and sat up. Reia quickly opened the bathroom door and ran out, startled by the noise Saburo made flying onto his bed. "Sorry about that." he said. "Daisuke's on the way, he said we should wait outside for him. Are you ready?" She nodded to him and headed for the door. He followed behind her down the stairs, 'She looks GOOD in those clothes.' he thought to himself. 'Shut it, you know she's a persocom... but she does look good.' Daisuke was already waiting downstairs by the time they had made it outside. Reia and Saburo got in and they headed off. Daisuke looked over at Saburo, "What's the grin for?" he asked. "Oh, it's nothing." Saburo replied.

"So, how far away is this guy?"

"About a 45 minute drive." Daisuke replied

"Tokyo?"

"Yes."

After a mostly uneventful drive where most of the conversation was centered around a piece of nightwear, they finally arrived. Yukimi jumped up on the dash and pointed ahead. "We have reached our destination." she said. Saburo looked up as they approached a huge gate. Daisuke pulled his car in front of it and stepped out. He walked over to an intercom unit and after a few seconds of talking, the gate started to open. He jumped back in his car and drove in.

"Wow. Big place." Saburo said.

"Oh yeah." Daisuke replied, nodding his head.

Daisuke parked his car and put Yukimi on his shoudler. "Here we are!" he said as he closed the car door behind him.. Saburo stepped out of the car and opened the door for Reia. He looked up in amazement at the size of the house before him.

"Well? Are you coming?" Daisuke asked.

"Yeah... right behind you."

As they approached the entrance, the doors opened and a young persocom greeted them. "Welcome. Lord Minoru is expecting you, he is upstairs in his study. Please follow me." she said.

"Lord?" Saburo asked in a confused voice. Daisuke looked over at him and shrugged his shoulders. They removed their shoes at the door and put on a pair of slippers before following the persocom upstairs. She stopped at a door about halfway down the hall and stuck her head in.

"Your guests have arrived." she said.

"Good, please send them in." the voice on the other side replied.

She opened the door and then gestured towards it for them to enter. Saburo was met by a young man, no older than thirteen but Saburo knew that his knowledge far outweighed his age.

"I assume that you are Saburo." the young man said. Saburo nodded. "You must be 'M'. he replied.

"Call me Minoru." he said.

"Pleased to meet you."

Minoru nodded. "On to business. Please, have a seat." He directed Saburo and Daisuke to a seating area. A pair of sofas with a small table in between them. Already there was a young man and a female persocom. Saburo sat across from them. He placed his hand next to him on the sofa, gesturing Reia to sit next to him. Daisuke chose to stand behind his friend. Minoru sat next to the other persocom.

"First some introductions." Minoru said. He turned to the young man and his persocom. "This is Hideki Motosuwa and Chii." He then turned back to look at Saburo. "Hideki, Chii, this is Saburo and Reia."

"Hey, how's it going?" Saburo said

"Pretty good." Hideki replied.

"Chii!"

Reia nodded and smiled.

"I believe everyone here knows Daisuke, so no introduction is necessary." Minoru said. "Saburo, may I also introduce you to Yuzuki." He held his hand out and a young blue haired woman walked over from behind.

"It's a pleasure to meet you." she said.

"Likewise." Saburo replied.

"Would anyone like something to drink?" Minoru asked. Hideki shook his head. "No thanks." he said. Daisuke said the same. "Very well I will have tea. Saburo, what about you?"

"Do you have any type of soda?" he asked.

"Yes, I will return shortly." Yuzuki smiled and left the room.

"Tell us about Reia." Minoru said, sitting back and cleaning his glasses.

Saburo retold the story about how he found her, their misadventures and her inability to talk. He left out much about her past until he had a chance to talk to Minoru alone. He also made sure to leave out the running joke about Reia's newly acquired nightwear. Shortly after, Yuzuki returned with drinks for Minoru and Saburo.

"Thanks." Saburo said. He took a sip and sat his drink down. "Ahh, caffeinated goodness."

Minoru stood up and walked over to a bookshelf behind his computer. He pulled out a book and returned to the table. He passed the book to Saburo. "This may be helpful to you." he said. The book was dark green with only a symbol on the front, a crescent moon with electronic traces running across it. "It is a technical manual for Moonchild series persocoms." Minoru continued.

"Thank you. When do you want this back?" Saburo asked.

"When you are done with it."

Minoru made his way to the door to his study. "Yuzuki, Chii, do you mind showing Reia around?"

"Certainly." Yuzuki replied.

"Chii will help too!"

Reia stood up and followed the other two persocoms. She was stopped momentarily by Daisuke who sat Yukimi on her shoulder. Minoru closed the door behind them and sat back down.

"We do that whenever we discuss this. It is just not... right... to speak about it in front of them. I hope you understand." Minoru said.

Saburo nodded. "I understand."

Minoru sat back, getting into a more relaxed position. "To answer your first question, yes, persocoms have emotions. Mister Motosuwa is here because it was his persocom that made it happen."

"Her?" Saburo asked. Hideki nodded.

"She is one of the persocoms called Chobits. Persocoms designed with free will and full emotions. She feels loneliness, fear, love, hate, everything, just like you and I."

"Unbelievable. I do believe it but that is simply amazing." Saburo said.

Minoru continued. "She was also programmed to do one more thing. When she fell in love, finding what she calls 'the one just for me', she connected to every persocom and uploaded information to them. This information gave every persocom the same free will and emotions that she has."

"That explains why she ran away." Saburo thought out loud.

"Ran away?" Minoru asked.

"I will explain shortly. Please continue."

"When she connected to all other persocoms, they acted as if something had gone wrong with them. Unresponsive and unmoving, this worried some persocom owners who shut them down and rebooted them a few minutes later. Unfortunately this severed the connection that Chii had with them and they never received the information. This is why there is so much arguing over whether persocoms actually have emotions, because not all of them do. From what you have told me about Reia, I can say with confidence that she does."

"I've been getting that impression ever since I got her." Saburo said. "She doesn't act the way you would expect a machine to act."

"Chii didn't either." Hideki interjected.

Saburo nodded. "So how did you, well, meet Chii?" he asked.

"I found her in a trash pile." he replied. "How about Reia?"

"The back stockroom of a persocom shop, curled up next to some shelves."

"What is it with finding weird persocoms in weird places?" Hideki asked.

Saburo shrugged. "I take it you two are together, as in an item." Hideki nodded again. "How long?"

"Only a couple of months, but we're doing great!" he replied.

Saburo smiled and gave Hideki a thumbs up. "Speaking of which, can the ladies come back in?" Minoru nodded and gestured towards the door. "I'll take care of it!" Daisuke said as he ran out of the study. Hideki and Saburo started trading stories about their persocoms while Minoru settled in behind his computer.

Daisuke returned a few minutes later, a look of worry on his face.

"What's up?" Saburo asked.

"We... might have a small problem."

**_Author's Notes_ - How's it going? Hopefully I got everyone's character right at least within acceptable limits. I know not much happened in the last couple of chapters but it's all part of the story... it can't be all action and lingerie goodness O.o**

** Stay tuned!**


	13. Persocoms' Night Out

**Author's Notes: Wow, been a little while. Half writer's block, half dead hard drive. At least the latter fixed the former O.o Here we go, number twelve. Enjoy! **

Ch. 12 – Persocoms' Night Out

"What? Where did they go?"

"I do not know. They just left."

"How can they just leave!"

Hideki threatened to rip his hair out. He paced back and forth across the study. "What if she's in trouble? What if she's been kidnapped again? We've got to find them!"

"Mister Motosuwa." Minoru said in a very assertive tone. "Please calm down."

Minoru then turned to the maid. "Did they say anything else?" he asked.

"They said that they will be back soon." the maid persocom replied.

"Free will indeed." Saburo commented.

Minoru stared across his teacup at Saburo. He sat his cup down, connected the maid to his console and tapped on the screen. "Please contact Yuzuki." he said.

"One moment please." The maid's eyes began to streak.

Saburo sat down across from Hideki, still worrying to no end. He tried to calm the poor guy down, but with little effect. Daisuke stood beside Minoru, waiting for the maid to make a connection.

"I could not make a connection." the maid said, snapping out of her trance.

"Try contacting Yukimi." Daisuke replied. The maid nodded.

Saburo kicked back on the couch. 'Reia, what are you up to?' he began thinking.

Meanwhile, four persocoms find themselves outside a small downtown bar. They go inside and sit around a table near the back. Shortly afterwards, one of the waitresses walks over to their table. "Welcome!" she says. "Is there anything I can bring--" the waitress continues, stopping when she realizes that everyone at the table is a persocom. She looks at each of them in a moment of confusion, trying to figure out what to say.

"We're okay." Yuzuki replies.

The waitress smiles nervously and walks off to handle the other tables. Reia doodled on her PDA for a moment and then slid it across the table to Yuzuki and Chii. "What now?" Reia asked.

"Chii knows of lots of places to have fun!" Reia and Yuzuki turned to the young persocom. "Hideki takes Chii out a lot!" Yuzuki was a bit skeptical, knowing of the misadventures Chii has gotten into. However, Reia was all for it. She nodded and smiled to Chii, then wrote again and showed it to her. "Let's go!" she said.

Shortly after, Yukimi jumped off of Reia's shoulder and landed on the table. "Incoming phone call from Mister Kokubunji! Shall I connect?" Yuzuki nodded and asked Yukimi to make the connection. She sat down and began speaking in Minoru's voice.

"Yuzuki?"

"Yes, Minoru-sama?"

"Yuzuki! Where are you?" he asked.

"I am in the city, at a local bar."

"A bar? Why are you there? Are the others with you?"

"Yes, they are here." Yuzuki replied.

"Why did you leave?"

"There was nothing to do."

"Chii! Chii!" Hideki's voice came across the conversation. "Chii, are you okay?"

"Chii is fine!" she happily replied.

Hideki breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness." he said.

"Yuzuki" Minoru continued, "Please return soon."

"Yes, Minoru-sama."

"Connection ended." The maid disconnected herself from Minoru's terminal.

"See, there was nothing to worry about." Saburo said.

"It's just that Chii has gotten into trouble being spontaneous like that." Hideki replied.

"So has Yuzuki. She tried breaking into a database for me and risked being damaged." Minoru said.

"I remember that." Hideki commented.

"Reia... might act a little differently." Saburo said quietly.

"Why is that?" Minoru asked.

"I'll tell you what she told me..."

After a little walk, Chii walked up to a small building and pointed at it. "Chii and Hideki come here often." The other three look up at the building's sign.

"Video Arcade"

The place was packed. People were gathered around machines, each waiting for their turn to play. Reia and Yuzuki looked around a bit, then followed Chii to the back of the room. She put some of her money in a machine and it dispensed several coins. She divided them up between the three of them, Reia, Yuzuki and herself.

"Does Yukimi want to play?" Chii asked.

The mobile stood up and glanced around for a moment. "I'll just watch." she said.

Chii smiled, then ran off into the crowd. Yuzuki quickly followed behind. Before Reia could catch up, they had already disappeared. She started to wander among the crowd, checking out the games. One caught her attention. It was similar to the one that she and Saburo played. The controls were a bit different, but it had the same concept. There were only three people around it, so she waited behind them. A couple of moments later the guys at the game notice her behind them.

"Yes?" one of them asked.

Reia simply pointed to the machine.

"Oh, you want to play?"

She nodded.

The guy turns to his friend who is playing the game, taps him on the shoulder and points to Reia. "Its a persocom, so?" He whispers to his friend who looks back again for a second. "Right." he says, laughing. "Sure, let her play." The others step away from the machine. She walks up and grabs the controls. The others start snickering under their breath as Reia waits for the game to start.

"You need to put your tokens in." one of them said. Reia turned to him and tipped her head slightly. He points down to the coin slots. Yukimi jumps up on her shoulder, "Correct, you need to insert two tokens to play!" Reia squats

down and puts two tokens in the second player slot.

"A persocom with a mobile? That's a new one." one of the guys behind her commented. "Go easy on her dude!" he says to his friend.

"This is going to be so easy." he says.

Meanwhile on the other side of the building, Chii and Yuzuki make their way through the crowds to the back. Chii stops at a row of skeeball games. "This is Chii's favorite!" She dumps a token in the game and out roll a set of balls. "It works like this." she said as she grabbed one of the balls. A flick of the wrist sends the ball down the alley and up into the center hole. "Chiii!" the young persocom cheered as she clapped and jumped up and down. Yuzuki smiles and drops a token in the one next to Chii and grabs a ball. She sends it up and misses. "Don't worry" Chii said, "It took Chii time to get it too!"

Back at the Kokubunji residence, four guys start getting a bit restless.

"Didn't they say they'd be back shortly?" Saburo asked.

"I told Yuzuki to return soon. It shouldn't be much longer."

"It's been over an hour!" Hideki said. "I'm really starting to worry."

"Gotta agree with him on this one, we might need to go and find them." Saburo then turned to Minoru.

"I suppose it couldn't hurt." Minoru replied.

"Can you contact Yukimi again?" Daisuke asked, walking back over to Minoru's console. The maid persocom connected herself again and stood motionless for a moment. "She switched to voicemail mode." the maid replied.

"Can you locate her?"

"Yes."

A map of the downtown area appeared on the screen. A small blinking crosshair marked Yukimi's position. Everyone crowded to Minoru's console to see where she was located. After a brief moment of silent staring, Hideki stepped back. "They're there? I know where that's at." he said. "It's an arcade I take Chii out to often."

Saburo cracked half a smile. "Sounds like fun, what are we waiting for?"


	14. Playing Around

Ch. 13 - Playing Around

Daisuke slid his car into a parking space a couple of blocks from the arcade. Hideki quickly jumped out of the car and grabbed the nearest light pole, causing Saburo to stumble out in a laughing fit.

"You're crazy!" Hideki said, "How do you drive like that?"

Saburo caught himself for a brief moment. "You get used to it." he said.

Minoru and Daisuke stepped out and walked around the car to join Saburo and Hideki. Daisuke got a kick out of Hideki's reaction, while Minoru simply stood there silent. Hideki pulled himself back together and brushed off his shirt. "It's this way." he said.

"I wonder why Yukimi didn't answer." Saburo said.

"It gets noisy in there, especially at night. She probably tried to get someone's attention but they didn't hear her." Hideki replied.

Saburo nodded in agreement. "Makes sense."

After a bit of walking, they were outside the arcade. "Here it is!" Hideki said. Once inside, they split up to search for the persocoms. Hideki knew exactly where to look for Chii, he headed straight for the skeeball machines. There he found Chii, still playing, while Yuzuki stood behind her with a large stack of tickets in her hand. She grabbed another ball and sent it straight up the middle, scoring a center hole. She cheered as the lights on the machine flashed and tickets poured out. "Chii!" Hideki yelled, trying to get her attention through the crowds and the noise. She turned around and upon seeing him, ran and grabbed him in a tackling hug. Hideki managed to stay standing, thanks to the machine behind him.

"Hideki!" she said. "Look at all the tickets Chii won!"

He wrapped his arms around her and gave her a quick kiss. "That's wonderful!"

"She is quite good at this game." Yuzuki adds.

Hideki chuckled, "It's about the only game she plays."

"Chii wants to get something with the tickets!"

"You can do that, but first let's find the others."

"Chii!"

Saburo searched around for Reia, stopping to look at each group of people to see if she was among them. He peered above the crowds and noticed those familiar ears, making her stick out among the rest. He pushed through and eventually caught up to her. A line of people had built up beside her, each waiting for their chance to play. One by one, they either walked off or got back in line to try again. She was good. Very good. He waited until the round was over before he made his presence known, walking up directly behind her and wrapping his arms around her waist. "Hey you.", he whispered. Reia jumped in reaction and quicky turned around. Her face lit up and she grabbed him into a hug when she noticed who it was. "Having fun?" he asked. She nodded and pointed to her score. "That's

pretty impressive!" he said, giving her a thumbs up.

"Are we going to do this or what?" a voice from beside them asked. Saburo looked over at a fairly young guy, dropping tokens into the game. He turned back at Reia, "Well, you've got competition waiting. Best not to disappoint them." he said.

Reia went back to the game while Saburo looked around to find the others. He noticed Daisuke searching around and waved to get his attention.

"Good, you found her." Daisuke said, running up to him.

Saburo nodded. "She's been tearing this game up over here." Daisuke took a moment to watch her play. "Wow, she's got a knack for games" he said.

"I haven't the slightest idea where she gets it from."

"I don't know either, but she's definitely your persocom."

"I suppose so. Hey, can you go find the others? I imagine they're looking for us by now." he asked.

"Sure! I'll bring them back here." Daisuke replied, running off into the crowds.

Saburo turned his attention back to Reia. He focused more on her than the game she was playing. Although he didn't show it, he was worried about her. He didn't want her getting hurt or lost, not to mention being found by that nutcase Ushio. Even though he had only known Reia for a few days, he felt close to her.

'But... how close is too close?' he asked himself.

He really couldn't answer that. What he learned today changed his ideas on relationships with persocoms completely, whether intimate or not. His thoughts on their emotions had been confirmed and he actually saw firsthand a human/persocom relationship. Not some wacko you read about in the papers, but a real, down to earth relationship.

His thoughts continued as he watched her beat every challenger that stepped up. Just as the crowd started to thin out, Hideki, Chii and the others arrived. Daisuke held his hand out to Yukimi and placed her on his shoulder. She stood up and announced "You have one voicemail message from Mister Kokubunji."

Daisuke laughed. "I know.", he said.

Shortly afterwards, Saburo and Reia are waiting outside along with Hideki, Minoru and Daisuke.

"I take it you found something you like." Saburo said. Reia nodded to him and doodled on her PDA. "Can we get more for home?" she asked. "Sounds like a reason for a new game system to me." he replied.

"Like you need an excuse to buy another gadget." Daisuke said.

"Hey! It's not just for me, this is for her too!"

Hideki looked through the front door, "Here they come." he said.

Chii and Yuzuki join the others, each with a large stuffed animal in their arms. Chii ran over to Hideki and held it out to show him. Hideki smiled and put his hand on her head. "Chiiiiiiiii." she said softly.

"May I keep this, Minoru-sama?" Yuzuki asked, holding tightly to her plush toy.

"Of course." he replied.

"So..." Saburo said. "We have four guys, three and a half persocoms and two big plush animals. How did we plan to fit it all in your car again?"

"I am not half a persocom!" Yukimi yelled.

"No, but you can fit in a shirt pocket."

Daisuke stood thinking for a moment, knowing Saburo had a very valid point. "Well, if Reia sits in your lap, and Chii sits in Hideki's..."

"Chii and I can walk home from here. It isn't very far at all." Hideki said.

"As can Yuzuki and I." Minoru added.

"Well, there's my answer."

Before they left, Minoru pulled Saburo aside. "Reia is very fragile right now." he said. "She's emotionally damaged from what her last owner did, not to mention the physical damage, so just take everything slow and work with her."

"I'm already on it." he replied.

"Good. I'm sure she will be quite happy with you."

With that, Minoru, Hideki, Chii and Yuzuki start on their way home.

"We'd better be getting home ourselves." Daisuke said. Saburo nodded in agreement and they headed back to the car.

About an hour later, Daisuke pulls up to Saburo's apartment building. Saburo and Reia step out and he waves to Daisuke as he drives off. They make the long walk up the stairs and down the hallway to Saburo's apartment. Once they are inside, he throws himself on the bed.

"Another day, another misadventure." he said.

Reia landed next to him, imitating what he did.

"So, how did you get so damn good at that game?" Saburo asked.

Reia pointed over to the game console sitting next to the TV.

"But... you've only played it a few times."

She wrote for a moment. "It's a really easy game."

"Sounds like a challenge to me. Wanna play?" Reia nodded and the two kicked back on the couch, controllers in hand.

A few minutes later... 'Player Two Wins!'

"Awwwww, come on!"

**Author's Notes: Thanks for all the great reviews! I hope I'm still keeping your interests. Don't worry, there will be fun and excitment soon enough.  
**


	15. The Dating Game

**Author's Notes: Once again, thanks for all the great reviews! Not much more to say, so without further adieu... Number Fourteen!**

Ch. 14 - The Dating Game

--

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Reia exited standby mode and turned towards Saburo, who was still asleep. She waited a moment for him to wake up and turn off that annoying noise. After a few minutes of sleeping through the alarm, she took it upon herself to turn it off, reaching over and giving the spacebar a good solid whack.

"Wow, nice way to wake up." a slightly muffled voice said.

Reia looked down and noticed that she had reached over Saburo's head to cut off the alarm, showing off a bit more than expected. She immediately jumped back and pulled her shirt down over her knees.

Sabruo sat up. "Good morning to you too, Reia." he said, trying to hide the grin on his face. Reia grabbed her PDA off of the nightstand and started writing. Saburo placed his hand on the PDA as she was writing, "Don't worry about it." he said. "Let's just leave that one be." She nodded and went to writing again.

"Breakfast?"

"Sounds good to me." he said, stretching and making his way out of bed.

Reia made Saburo's usual ramen breakfast while he showered and got ready for work. She had it prepared just as he walked out of the shower. Saburo munched on his breakfast while checking the daily online news and info. He had a new message on the persocom board from M, "You forgot the book I gave you when you were here a few days back. I've had it shipped to your home, you should receive it shortly." it said. He replied, thanking him and asking if there was anytime he could stop by and talk tech. After that, he logged off and dressed for work.

"I'll be back soon!" he said, heading for the door. Reia gave him a hug and sat on the couch to play more games.

Work had gone back down to its normal pace, giving Saburo and his coworkers a break from the madness that had gone on for the past week. Occasionally he would handle the sales counter but for the most part his boss let him and the others have an easy day. His coworkers still asked about Reia and he usually had one or two stories to tell. Around lunchtime, Saburo's boss called him in and told him he had a phone call on hold. He grabbed the stockroom phone and answered.

"Saburo! I really need your help!" a very hyper Daisuke said.

"Whoa calm down there, the world's not ending, is it?"

"You remember that girl in class that I sometimes tell you about?"

"Leiko?"

"Yeah. Well, I asked her out on a date tonight and she said yes!"

"Excellent! What, you want me to be your driver for the night or something?"

"Close, but nothing like that. She said she would feel comfortable if I brought someone else along."

"Not too trusting, is she?"

"C'mon dude, help me out!"

"Alright, I'm game. But won't I be a third wheel?"

"By bringing someone else along, I mean on a double date. Get with it, man!"

"Oh! Gotcha. One thing though, I don't think I can magically come up with a date."

"Sure you can!"

"Right..."

"Think about it for a second."

Saburo paused for a moment. "You can't be serious."

"Why not? It'll be fine! I'll pick you up around 7. See you then!" click

"Daisuke? Umm... Daisuke?"

Saburo hung up the phone. 'Well, this ought to be interesting.' he thought to himself.

The rest of Saburo's workday went by quickly and before he knew it, it was time to head home. Reia was still playing when he came in. He took his shoes off and laid back on the couch next to her.

"Daisuke called me at work, looks like we're going out tonight." he said.

Reia paused the game and gave Saburo a look of curiousity. She went to writing and showed him. "What's going on?" she asked.

"He finally got a date with a girl from school he's been going nuts over." Reia smiled and imitated Saburo, giving a thumbs up. "But she's apparently had a few bad experiences." he continued. "So she's asked him to find a friend for a double date." Reia tipped her head with a confused expression. She doodled on her PDA again, "What do you want me to do?"

Saburo scratched the back of his head nervously, "Be my date?"

Reia's face lit up and she pounced him into a big hug. She grabbed onto him tightly and then stopped for a moment, and went at the PDA. "I don't know what to do, I have never been out on one of these." Saburo sat back up, "Well, that makes two of us. I haven't been on a date since..." he said, shuddering lightly. Reia gave him another confused look. He stood up and walked over to the nightstand, opened the drawer and pulled out a small picture frame. He sat back down on the couch and showed her the picture. It was a younger picture of him, his arms wrapped around a fairly attractive girl.

"A long time ago, well three years actually, she was my girlfriend." he said. Reia took the picture and studied it for a moment. She took a second to write on the PDA and handed it to Saburo. "What happened?"

"What always happens. Someone like me is no match for a hot rich guy. Physically too, unfortunately. To make a long story short, he kicked my ass and left me a bloody mess in a parking lot after I confronted her about it."

Reia took the PDA, "Why do you still keep it?" she wrote.

"I really don't know. Hopes that she might one day come back. Anyway, since then I really haven't gone out, didn't want to. I focused on finishing school and spent my time working on the huge piles of electronics I have." Saburo got up and tossed the picture on the nightstand. "I'll quit boring you with my past."

About that time, Reia and Saburo were startled by a loud pounding on the door. "Saburo! Saburo! Are you ready yet?"

"Oh for the love of..." Saburo opened the door and let Daisuke in. "It's not even six yet!"

Daisuke caught his breath, "I just don't want to be late."

Saburo pointed to the clock, "It's 5:35! You must really have it bad for this girl. Alright, let me get cleaned up." He quickly picked out clean clothes to wear and ran off to change. Daisuke sat on the couch where Saburo had been. "He tell you the plans?" he asked Reia. She nodded in response. "Great, everything is going perfectly!"

"Where are we going?" Reia wrote.

"Just to a nice resturaunt, maybe catch a movie afterwards." Daisuke replied.

"Sounds great!" Saburo said, running out of the bathroom and cannonballing onto his bed. "Where are we meeting Leiko?"

"I'm picking her up from her place. That reminds me, can I use your phone?"

"Sure!" Saburo said, picking up the receiver and tossing it to Daisuke. He pulled out a small piece of paper and dialed the number that was on it. A few minutes of chatting and he tossed the phone back. "Okay, she said we can pick her up now if we want."

"Better than waiting for another hour."

Saburo and Reia followed Daisuke down to his car. "You're gonna have to backseat it this time." he said while unlocking the doors.

"Of course." Saburo replied.

Leiko's home was only a few minutes away from Saburo's apartment complex, but with the way Daisuke drives they were there in no time. "You might want to tone it down just a bit for this girl." Saburo commented. "You don't wanna end up freaking her out before the date even starts." Daisuke nodded, "Don't worry." he replied. He stopped his car outside a small home in a rather nice looking neighborhood. "I'll be right back." he said as he got out of the car and headed towards the door. An older woman answered the door and invited him in.

"Hopefully this shouldn't take long" Saburo said.

After a few minutes of waiting, the front door opened again. Daisuke came out behind a very short girl with long black hair and thick glasses. He opened the passenger door for her and ran around to the other side to get in. After closing the door, he turned around in his seat, "Saburo, Reia, this is Leiko." he said. Daisuke then turned to Leiko, "This is Saburo and Reia." The young girl turned towards the back, pushed up her glasses and gave the two a quick look. "Hey!" she said, smiling. "You're the guy D has told me so much about."

"Oh really?" Saburo replied.

"Nothing bad, don't worry."

Leiko then turned her attention to Reia. "Hello!" she said. Reia waved to her with a smile. "It's Reia, right?" Leiko asked. Reia nodded in response. "You're Saburo's date?" Reia nodded again. "Cool!" Leiko said. She turned to Daisuke, "Let's go have ourselves some fun!"

Daisuke smiled. "Here we go!"

'She had to have noticed that Reia's a persocom.' Saburo thought to himself. 'And she didn't have a problem with it? I'm liking her already.'

Daisuke parked the car behind a very nice restaurant. "I made the reservations in advance, hopefully they'll let us sit down early."

"I hope so, we're an hour early." Saburo said.

"I'm sure they won't have a problem with it."

Daisuke discusses his reservations with one of the waiters and a few moments later, they were taken to their seats. Before leaving, the waiter asks about drinks. "Tea will be fine." Daisuke said. Leiko picks up the menu, "I don't have

class tomorrow, I'm not driving, I think I want a drink." she said. Saburo nods in agreement, "Sounds like a good idea." She goes over the menu briefly, and then looks up at the waiter. "I'll take a cold fusion." she says.

Saburo raises an eyebrow, "Cold fusion?" he asks. Leiko points it out on the menu and he reads the ingredient list. "That sounds good, I'll take one as well." Reia doodles and shows her PDA to Saburo, "What's that?" she wrote. "From the looks of it, something similar to rocket fuel." he replied.

"What's that?" Leiko asked, pointing to Reia's PDA.

"It's a PDA. Reia can't talk, so that's what she uses." Saburo replied. Reia nodded to Leiko in agreement.

"What happened?"

"It's a bit of a long story."

The waiter returns with everyone's drink order. He sits down two small glasses in front of Leiko and Saburo, and then sits Daisuke's tea in front of him. Saburo holds up his drink, "To all the fun life has to offer."

"I agree!" Leiko says as she picks up her drink as well.

Daisuke nods, "To the fun!"

Reia looks at the others out of curiousity then turns to Saburo, tipping her head. "It's a toast." Saburo says, "A way of wishing for good fortune." He takes her hand and wraps it around the glass with his. "To the fun!" they all say simultaneously. Reia smiles and nods in approval. Saburo takes Reia's hand off of the glass, keeping hold of it in his free hand as he downs the bright blue concoction. Sitting the now empty glass down on the table, he takes a deep breath.

"Waaaaaaaow!" he says, shaking his head.

"Okay Leiko, your turn."

She makes near instant work of the drink and sits the glass down gently. She giggles at Daisuke who is staring at her with amazement, then wraps her arms around him and plants a kiss on his cheek.

"I'm not scaring you, am I?" she asks.

"Scare him?" Saburo comments, laughing.

The waiter returns once more and asks for their food orders. They all flip through the menus and place orders. Before the waiter leaves, Leiko orders another cold fusion. Saburo follows suit. After a little dinner and another drink for both Leiko and Saburo, Leiko suggests moving up to the bar.

"Wow, she's definitely not reserved." Saburo says.

"Oh, he knows I can get a little crazy, don't ya?" she replies, putting her arms around Daisuke.

"You two will get along just fine."

They find a couple of seats up at the bar and Saburo and Leiko continue the drinking festivities. They all exchange stories, even Reia adds in her experiences since meeting Saburo. "I gotta ask..." Saburo says, trying not to trip over his words. "You do know... that Reia's a... umm... a persocom! Yeah, that's it... right?" Leiko nods in response, sipping on her drink. "You're not bothered... that she's my date? You don't think I'm some sort of perso... pervert... or whatever they're called... do you?" Leiko giggled, "Of course not! I just assumed that you couldn't find a date!"

Saburo let his head fall to the bar with a thud, causing Leiko to laugh uncontrollably. He held up his hand to the bartender and pointed at his glass. Reia passed her PDA to Saburo, "Are you okay?" she wrote. "Oh I'm doing juuuuuuuust fine." he said, smiling. She doodled again, "Is our date doing good?" Saburo nodded, "You betcha." Reia smiled in response.

Daisuke took a moment to check his watch, "Damn, we missed the movie!" he said.

"Its okay, this is actually much better." Leiko said.

"Really?"

"Yeah. I actually get to know you and socialize rather than sit silently in a theater."

"Plus... you get to watch... little ol me... drink myself stupid... which I have heard... is quite funny." Saburo said. "Seriously... I hope that I'm not... putting a burden... on you twos date."

"No burden at all!" Daisuke replied.

Midnight quickly rolls around and everyone agrees that it's time to go home. They pile into Daisuke's car, and for both Leiko and Saburo, pile into is a fairly accurate description. "I had a great time, D." Leiko says as she sits down in his car. "We'll definitely have to do this again sometime!" Daisuke smiles, "I look forward to it."

Daisuke's car pulls up outside Leiko's home and he gets out to open the door for her. He follows her up to the doorstep, making sure she doesn't hurt herself in her alcohol-induced daze. Saburo watches from the back seat, "Come on dude, come on dude, come on dude..." he chants, causing Reia to look out of curiousity. They talk for a moment, then she pulls him down towards her into a very long kiss.

"Alright Daisuke!" Saburo cheers quietly.

Reia taps Saburo on the shoulder and holds out her PDA. He takes it and spends a moment trying to focus on it with what little light he had. "Is that good?" she wrote. "Definitely. That means that... well... for lack of better words... that means she likes him." Leiko goes inside and Daisuke quickly runs down to the car. As they leave the neighborhood, Saburo leans over into the front of the car. "Okay, you can let it out now." he says. Almost instantly, an ear-to-ear grin covers Daisuke's face.

"WOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOO!" he yells at the top of his lungs. He pulls up next to Saburo's apartment building, still grinning. Saburo steps out and walks over to the driver's window. "Let me know if you need me to hang out with you two again." he says. "Next time I think it will be just us." Daisuke replies.

"Either way, you know where I'm at."

Daisuke nods and drives off towards home. Saburo and Reia make their way back up to his apartment. He kicked his shoes off and sat them next to the door then laid down on the bed. "Been a long time since I drank like that, sheesh. I've still got a bit of a buzz happening." Reia started to write on her PDA, and held it out to him. He stood back up and read what she had written. "Did I do okay?" Saburo chuckled a bit, "Of course you did! I expected that you wouldn't have any problems and--" His words were cut short by her lips firmly pressing against his own.

If there was one thing that could snap Saburo back into sobriety, that was most certainly it.

She held onto him tightly, then let go and took a half step back. "Now that... I was not expecting." he said. Reia's slight smile started to disappear as she slowly inched away from him. He put one hand behind her and traced the other along her ear and down to her cheek. "I never said I didn't like it." he said with a half smile, pulling her into another kiss and reaching over to turn off the light.

-- -- --

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Saburo rubbed his eyes, then reached over and pressed the spacebar on his keyboard, silencing the alarm. He tossed slightly, sinking back into bed. A few seconds later the phone rang. He reached over to pick it up, answering with a barely coherent "Hello?"

"Hey, it's just me. Wanted to thank you for coming out last night."

"No problem, you know that. I'm guessing all went well."

"Oh yeah, she called me last night after I got home. Said she had the best time and wants to go out again this weekend!"

"Excellent!"

"Thanks again dude, I really owe you one this time.

Saburo looked down at Reia, her head resting on his bare chest. He ran his fingers through her hair and along her back, smiling slightly.

"No Daisuke, I think we can call it even.


	16. Summer, Summer, Summertime!

**Author's Notes: Thought I had disappeared, didn't ya? Just been a bit tied up, that's all. Anyway, here's the next installment all fresh and ready for the reading.**

**cloudtifa82: Answering your questions... 1. I'm not into sad endings. 2. Did they? Will they? Read and find out**

Ch.15 - Summer, Summer, Summertime!

--

"Ahh! Ooh! Ouch! Eek! Ahh damnit!" Reia watched with puzzlement as Saburo did the hot pavement dance across the parking lot to pick up his mail. He hopped back across to the doorway where she was still watching him, her head tipped to the side. He sat down on the steps for a moment to fan his feet with the stack of envelopes he picked up.

"Ouchouchouchouch that's HOT!" he said, frantically flapping the pile of mail. He didn't notice Daisuke walking up towards him, laughing the entire way.

"There's this new invention called 'shoes'. They help in situations like this." he said.

"Shut it!" Saburo replied, with a hint of laughter in his voice. "Why are you here anyway? Thought you'd be with Leiko."

"She's out picking up a new bathing suit."

"And you're not there for that? What's wrong with you man!"

"She wants it to be a surprise." Daisuke said with a grin. "That's also why I'm here."

Saburo raised an eyebrow. "Do I want to know?"

"Sure!" Daisuke replied, "M's having his usual summertime beach house get together. He wanted me to tell you that you and Reia are invited along."

"I'll have to talk to my boss about getting any days off, but that shouldn't be a problem. Send me an email with all the details."

"Sure thing. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a girlfriend to pick up."

Daisuke jumped back in his car and drove off. Saburo sat the mail down on the step next to him, wrapped his arms around Reia and pulled her onto his lap. "So, what do you think? Should we go?" he asked. Almost immediately, she smiled and nodded, putting her hands on his shoulders. "Well you know what that means, right?" Saburo asked, cracking a smile. Reia cocked her head to the side, waiting for an answer.

He smiled and gave her a kiss. "It means that you need a bathing suit too."

-- -- --

Saburo sat outside the dressing room, waiting for Reia to come out. His mind was focused on the upcoming weekend. This would give him and Reia some time to explore their newfound relationship, although he was still a bit uneasy about making it known to everyone. He didn't even tell Daisuke about what happened over a week ago after the double date with him and Leiko. He wasn't embarrassed about being interested in a persocom, rather he was concerned about how everyone else would react to it.

'I hope Hideki will be there, that would make things a lot easier.' he thought to himself.

He felt a light tap on his shoulder, snapping him back into the real world. He turned around to see Reia wearing what she had picked out: a dark purple two-piece bikini with black accents. She twirled around, giving him a complete view.

'Please, oh PLEASE be there!'

Reia tipped her head to the side, waiting for a response. "I like it, it's quite... nice." he said.

Saburo went to find something for him to wear while Reia changed back into her normal clothing. He came across a pair of swimming shorts that matched Reia's bikini almost perfectly. 'Why not?' he thought, and picked them up. The persocom handling the sales counter recommended both a high SPF sunscreen for Saburo and an antioxidant gel for Reia.

Saburo nodded, "Better to be safe than cooked." he said.

Their next stop was right across the street, a small liquor store to pick up just enough to liven up the festivities a tad. "Can I see your PDA for a moment?" he asked Reia. She handed it to him and he flipped through the drink recipes he had uploaded to it earlier. Reia followed behind him as he walked up and down the aisles picking up the all the ingredients he needed. From there it was a quick jump to his workplace to ask for Friday off.

"Got early weekend plans?" his boss asked.

"Yeah, some friends have invited me for a weekend out at the beach." Saburo replied.

"Well, you helped out a lot during that big crunch so I see no problem with it."

"Great, thanks!"

"Anytime. Have a blast!"

Before Saburo left, he made a quick call to Daisuke to let him know everything was in order.

"Are you in?" Daisuke asked.

"Absolutely."

-- -- --

Early the next day, Saburo walked around the apartment doing a final check of things to take while Reia got dressed. He packed the game console and hid it inside his bag, a surprise for Reia and perhaps a chance for him to play against someone and actually win. He quickly zipped his bag when he heard her step out. He looked up to her wearing jean shorts and her bikini top, the crescent Moonchild logo slightly showing on the top of her right breast. Saburo stopped dead in the middle of what he was doing, unable to pull his eyes away from her. He stood up just as an idea hit him, after rummaging through the drawers of one of his desks he pulled out a pair of Oakley style glasses and lopped about an inch off each side. He then handed them to Reia and gestured for her to put them on.

"A perfect fit!" he said, seeing that they stopped right at her ears and stayed in place nicely. Reia however had to take a few minutes to adjust to wearing them. She waved her hands in front of her face, jerking back slightly. "I'm guessing they mess with your optical circuits?" Saburo asked. Reia nodded in response. He took the glasses by the sides and slid them up above her forehead. "There we go!"

The phone rang, "That's probably Daisuke." Saburo said. He gave Reia a quick kiss on the lips and flipped over onto the bed to pick up the handset. "You ready?" the voice on the other side asked. "Yup! Let's get outta here!" he replied. Saburo picked up both Reia's and his own bag and opened the door. "Time to get going." he said.

Daisuke was waiting outside with Leiko in the passenger seat. He popped the trunk after seeing Saburo come out carrying the bags and waved to him. When Reia stepped out, there wasn't much he could do not to stare. This was not amusing to

Leiko, and she quickly gave him a solid whack on the head. "Ouch! What was that for?" he exclaimed. Leiko crossed her arms, "Stop looking at other girls!" she said. Daisuke gave her a look like she was totally insane. "It's Saburo's persocom for goodness sake! Cut me a little slack here!"

Their trip lasted a bit under an hour. Yukimi was on hand to direct Daisuke where to go, so they made excellent time. "Everyone is probably down on the beach." he said while parking. Yukimi climbed up on Reia's shoulder and everyone followed Daisuke down to the oceanfront. Saburo noticed a couple of familiar faces, mainly Minoru and Hideki. He breathed a small sigh of relief upon seeing Hideki, knowing that he'd have advice on his new relationship, not to mention making it a bit easier to break the ice to his friends about him and Reia. He followed Daisuke over to Minoru to let him know they had arrived. Leiko tagged along and Reia ran down to see Chii.

"I'm glad to see you made it." Minoru said, sitting his book down. "Unfortunately not everyone else could. Shinbo and Takako are traveling abroad and Miss Hibiya has, shall we say, plans of her own."

"Oh really?" Daisuke piped up.

"Saburo, did you receive the technical manual?" Minoru asked.

"Yep, it's in my bag." he replied.

"Good. On that note, how is Reia doing?"

"She's great! Seems to have come out of her shell and isn't overly worried about every little thing now."

"Looks like you have made excellent progress."

A pair of Minoru's maid persocoms approached Daisuke and offered to take his bags inside. He handed them his keys and they set off towards his car. "Oh, I almost forgot. This is Leiko." he said, putting his arm around her waist. "Leiko, this is Minoru, a good friend of mine and the one who made this possible."

"Nice to meet you! I'm glad to see that I am taller than someone for once." she giggled.

While Daisuke and Leiko were chatting it up with Minoru, Saburo thought it would be a good idea to see where Reia had wandered off. He didn't have to look far, finding her sitting on the beach with Hideki and Chii. Saburo approached with curiosity, noticing a pair of mobiles walking towards them.

"You should learn to have more fun, Kotoko. That's why we're here!"

"I'm not designed to be in the water." the blue haired mobile replied, shaking the water from her hair bells. "I would prefer to sit silently in the shade." The other small persocom looked up towards Reia, taking notice at Yukimi sitting on her shoulder. Yukimi jumped off and landed on the beach and the two ran towards each other. "Sumomo!" "Yukimi!", they both yelled while jumping, somersaulting and dancing. Kotoko stood motionless; eyes wide open watching what was going on. "There's... two... of them?" she said, turning back towards the ocean. "Perhaps the water isn't such a bad idea."

"So, who are your new friends?" Saburo asked. Reia shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. Hideki sat up upon hearing Saburo's voice beside him, "Hey Saburo, how's everything?" he asked. "Not bad at all." Saburo replied. "How are you and Chii doing?"

"Better than ever!" Hideki replied with a smile.

"Chii!" she said. "Chii and Hideki are happy!"

"You haven't met the mobiles yet, the overly energetic one in pink is Sumomo, and the one with the bells in her hair is Kotoko."

"Nice to meet you." Kotoko said.

"Aye! Nice to meet you!" Sumomo cheered. "And who is your friend?"

"Oh! Sorry, this is Reia." She smiled and waved to the two small persocoms at her feet. Kotoko took notice of the logo on Reia's chest, "A Moonchild?" she asked. Saburo nodded, "Do you know about them?" He held his hand out to her and brought her level to him. "I have information on virtually all persocom manufacturers and models, including Moonchild. I have never seen one before however I do have some data about them."

"I'll have to talk with you sometime this weekend." Saburo said. Kotoko nodded in agreement.

Hideki stood up and pointed towards the two people playing volleyball with two of Minoru's maid persocoms. "The young girl is Yumi, a good friend of mine and the guy she is with is her fiancé, Ueda. He manages the shop where Chii works."

"Excellent!" Saburo replied.

He took notice that the maids were losing badly to Yumi and Ueda. He held his hand out to Reia, "Do you know how to play?" he asked. She shook her head. "That's okay, it's really easy." He took his hand in hers and they ran off to join in the game. Chii and Hideki also joined in to even the teams out. Day quickly turned to night after several games, playing in the water, socializing and flat out partying. Everyone started to head back to the beach house to wash up and change clothes after the sun started to set. Saburo and Hideki were among the first to make it back and headed straight for their rooms to wash the salt off and change into something dry. When Reia and Chii arrived, Minoru directed them where to go.

"Reia, head down that hallway and it will be the first room on the right. Chii, same thing but on the left." he said.

"Chii!"

Reia gave Minoru a nod.

They quickly ran towards the rooms and headed in to change. A couple of seconds later one of the maids approached Minoru, "Lord Minoru, I'm afraid you have made a mistake. The rooms you sent them to are--". Almost immediately, two screams were heard from the aforementioned rooms. Everyone looked down the hall to see what had happened and saw Chii run from the left doorway into the right and Reia run from the right to the left, both only wrapped in towels, bathing suits in hand.

"--the wrong ones." the maid continued.

Saburo and Hideki emerged from their rooms, cleaned up and dressed with Chii and Reia behind them. Saburo carried a small bag over his shoulder into the living room where everyone else was waiting. Sitting down, he unzipped the bag and pulled out several bottles of different liquors. Leiko immediately sat up and darted for one of the bottles, "Oooohhh, I know exactly what you have planned for this!" she said. Saburo pulled out a couple more bottles and held them up, "Care to join me in the kitchen?" She nodded and followed behind him. "Okay, who is old enough to drink here?" he asked, poking his head around the corner. Leiko grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back into the kitchen, "Does it matter?" she said. "Okay, but I don't know anyone here but Reia if you know what I mean." he replied. Leiko laughed as she cracked open one of the bottles.

They returned shortly carrying several glasses in their hands. "What is that?" Yumi asked. Ueda shrugged, "I haven't the slightest idea."

"Puts hair on your chest!" Saburo said.

"But I don't want hair on my chest." Yumi replied.

Saburo snickered, "Don't worry." he said. "You don't have to drink it, you know."

Yumi shrugged and picked up a glass, studying it for a moment. Everyone else takes one and toasts to the weekend.

"Hey, that wasn't too bad!" Daisuke said. "I see why you like these things, Leiko."

"I guess that means another round. I'll be back in a moment!"

This continued, as it usually does, until everyone started acting a little silly. Hideki caught a massive giggle fit, much to the confusion of Chii, whose reactions and questions would immediately set him to laughing again. Yumi and Leiko were off in their own world, chatting away with Reia occasionally adding in. Chii also found herself in the conversation, as did Yuzuki, leaving the guys to their own devices. Trying to break Hideki of his giggle fit, they head out to the upper balcony. Unfortunately Hideki spotted the mobiles through his bedroom window. Yukimi and Sumomo were driving Kotoko nuts by jumping on the bed and sending her airborne. This didn't help to calm poor Hideki down. They all sat around an outdoor table, out of the view of the mobiles and made themselves comfortable.

"So... I don't think we've met." Saburo said, turning to Ueda. "I'm Saburo and the persocom with purple eyes and jet black hair is Reia."

"Nice to meet you. How did you get to know Minoru?"

"He helped me with a few persocom problems."

"Sounds like most of his friends." Ueda replied.

"Okay, okay... I am back to normal. Good grief my chest hurts!" Hideki said, catching his breath.

"It should, laughing as much as you did." Saburo commented.

"I hardly drink, and never this much!"

"First time for everything. Anyway, since you are sane again, there's something I want to ask."

"Sure, anything!"

"How long did it take for your friends and family to... accept your relationship with Chii?"

"My friends didn't have any issues with it, mostly because we're a closely knit group. My family took a bit of time. Eventually they saw that I was happy and to them that's what mattered."

"It wasn't that easy for me." Ueda interjected.

Saburo waved his hands in front of Ueda, "Thought Yumi was human."

"My previous wife was not, however."

"Wife?" Saburo asked.

Ueda nodded. "I was married to a persocom."

Saburo's eyes grew wide. "Ah. Sorry." he said.

"Nothing to be sorry about." Ueda replied. "Anyway, everyone thought I was crazy. They would all point and laugh, give me a hard time just about any way they could. Honestly, I didn't care. I was with the one I loved and that was all that mattered."

"I won't dig any deeper." Saburo said.

Ueda nodded.

Saburo went around the table. "And what about you and Yuzuki, M?"

"No, nothing like that." Minoru said calmly, seemingly unaffected by the alcohol. A slight smile came across his face, "But... that doesn't mean I haven't thought about it."

Daisuke sat up, "My turn. Why are you asking all of this?"

Saburo took a sip of his drink. "All right, all right." he said. "You remember that night the four of us went on that double date?"

Daisuke nodded, "How could I not?"

"Well, after we got home that night, Reia and I got... close."

Daisuke stared blankly at his friend for a moment. "You mean..." Saburo nodded. "With her..." Saburo kept nodding. "And you two..." Saburo was still nodding. "Did you have..."

"That we didn't do." Saburo replied.

"And it's a good thing too!" Hideki added. "Y'see, there's this very annoying switch that--"

"Moonchild series persocoms don't have that." Minoru interjected.

"WHAT!" Hideki yelled.

"That is correct. A Moonchild persocom is very difficult to reinitialize. You actually have to cross two points on the main circuit board. Even the on/off and reset switches are located on this board, not in her ears as with any other persocom."

"That's all great and everything, but are you telling me that you and Reia are... together?" Daisuke asked.

"Seems that way, doesn't it?" Saburo said.

"Well that's just great!" Daisuke sighed as he got up from the table. He walked over to the balcony door and poked his head in. "You were right, Leiko." She looked back at Daisuke with a bit of confusion, "Right about what?" she asked.

"Saburo and Reia."

Leiko squealed with excitement and almost knocked Reia over with a hug. "I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!" she said, running out to the balcony and wrapping Saburo into a hug. She skipped back over to Daisuke and jumped up to give him a kiss. "You owe me a night out!" she said, running back inside.

Saburo raised an eyebrow, "What in the world was that about?" he asked.

"Leiko said you two would get together after that night. She bet me dinner that it would happen."

"Oh for the... was it that obvious!"

"Well, I had my thoughts."

"I did try to keep it secret after all that happened. Didn't know how you'd react, much less everyone else I know."

"Saburo, you're my friend, you don't have to hide something like that from me. I don't have a problem with it at all, and I don't think anyone else sitting here does either."

"Not at all." Minoru said.

Ueda and Hideki nodded in agreement.

"Thanks, that is a big relief." Saburo said. "That reminds me... Daisuke, lighter and smokes." Daisuke passes his lighter and cigarettes over to Saburo. He sticks one in his mouth, fishes in his pocket and pulls out a photograph.

"Remember this?" he asked Daisuke. "Oh yeah, that's you and Ila." he replied. Saburo nodded and fired up the lighter under the picture, lit his cigarette off the burning photo and watched the ashes blow away in the night wind.

"That... felt good." he said.

Minoru looked inside and noticed the girls were almost passed out; the persocoms were the only ones with any energy left. "I believe we should all turn in for what's left of the night." he said. Everyone agreed and headed in. Daisuke picked a sleeping Leiko up off the couch and headed for his room. Yumi and Ueda offered to stay up and help with cleaning, but Minoru refused. He asked the maids to pick up and they made short work of the mess. They followed Minoru and Yuzuki upstairs to their rooms, saying their goodnights along the way.

Saburo slowly made his way to his room for the night. He unpacked his clothes and slipped on a pair of sweatshorts to sleep in. He heard Reia changing in the small bathroom that was connected to the room. He remembered packing the game console to surprise her when he came across it pulling out his clothes. The room also had a small television in it, so he quickly connected it and went back to unpacking. He heard the bathroom door open behind him and he turned around to tell Reia about the surprise he brought along.

All that went straight out the window when he saw that Reia had packed a surprise of her own... that purple negligee.


	17. What's in a Name?

**Author's Notes: Wow, that was a quick chapter! This one is more along the lines of the "Talk" episodes... less action and adventure, more filling in a few gaps.**

**Enjoy! **

Ch.16 - What's in a Name?

"Good morning Saburo!" Leiko said cheerfully.

"Mmmrf mmffff mrmmfffff mmmmmfff." Saburo replied in incoherent mumbling, pulling two cans of soda from the fridge. He cracked the top of one and in one smooth motion drank the whole thing, crunched the can and tossed it into the recycling bin next to the fridge.

"Good morning to you too." Saburo said, cracking the top of the second can.

"Good grief!" she said, giving him a strange look. "Ever think about good old coffee?"

"Vile waste of water." he replied.

Saburo sat down on the couch in the living room and kicked back. He found Kotoko sunk back in some pillows on the other side of the couch. "You okay?" he asked. She popped out of standby with a slight jingling of her bells, "Yes, I am just hiding from the other two." she replied. Saburo chuckled, "Yeah, I saw what they were doing to you last night."

"So, you said you had info on my persocom?" Saburo asked.

Kotoko jumped up on his leg and sat down. "Yes." she replied.

"Tell me what you know."

"Moonchild was a joint effort between Michael Halladin, an American electronics engineer and Tsubi Marotaki, a Japanese software designer. The two met during a research conference in San Francisco, California on April 25th, 2203. Almost immediately afterwards, they began work on a project that several large persocom corporations spent many billions in research and development on only to end in failure. That project was to create a persocom that could develop its own unique personality. You may look at every persocom you see and think "They have personalities, don't they?" but that is simply the way they are programmed. Sumomo and Yukimi were programmed to be very energetic and upbeat, whereas I was programmed to be serious and contemplative. Halladin and Marotaki set forth to create a persocom that would develop that personality on its own over time. How it acted would be completely dependant on the life it lived. It would develop likes and dislikes of certain things and situations, create its own way of acting and reacting to its environment, even developing phobias and hobbies."

"Sounds like it was a heck of a job." Saburo said, sipping on his soda.

Kotoko continued. "Marotaki began the design of the algorithms and code for the personality software while Halladin developed hardware capable of running it. After six months of design and testing, they had created a basic personality system using off the shelf hardware. Eventually as Marotaki's code grew in complexity, the hardware they were limited to could no longer handle the processing requirements. Halladin contacted a few friends back in California who worked for Earthtech, a large fabrication plant in California's Silicon Valley. He had them build a prototype processor that would exceed the requirements of Marotaki's software. In less than a month they had their processor, and it worked better than they had imagined."

"Once they created both the hardware and software, they moved on to the task of making it work in an actual persocom. This proved to be more difficult than they had thought. The two modified an old persocom with their processor to work in tandem with the persocom's CPU, which was no easy task. Unfortunately, that was the least of their worries. The real problem started when the software was loaded. Up until then, they had only tested the personality software on a test computer, and that was the only thing they had running on it. Combined with a persocom's normal CPU and hard drive load, the personality software proved too much for the persocom's system to handle. All it would do was process data. The only way they could work around that problem was to install a cutting edge CPU and hard drive. After making a few adjustments, they turned it back on and the first persocom with a dynamic personality was created."

"Hmm, interesting story, mind if I listen in?" Hideki asked, pulling up a pair of chairs for Chii and himself.

"Sure!" Saburo replied. "Continue on, Kotoko."

"After months of testing and debugging, they were ready to begin production. With no manufacturing plant of their own, they purchased ten thousand old model persocoms from PCN, as well as new CPUs and drives for each. Halladin put in the order for the personality processors and almost immediately drew attention from his colleagues. They decided that they needed a name for the project to help keep it quiet, something completely unrelated to persocoms. Marotaki suggested the name Moonchild, a character from his daughter's favorite book, and the name stuck. Over the next two months, they upgraded the hardware in their persocoms and installed their processors and software. On July 1st, 2204 the first Moonchild persocom went on sale, the Luna, named after their prototype persocom."

"Reactions were mixed. Persocom enthusiasts were overjoyed and picked one up almost immediately, however the general public did not seem interested due to the lack of control they had over the way their persocom acted as well as the above average price for what looked like last year's PCN persocom. Nevertheless, sales were phenomenal. The ten thousand Lunas sold faster than they had expected and now they were dealing with the problem of meeting the global demand for their persocoms. Fortunately their work sparked the interest of a startup persocom manufacturer, LMI Persocom. Halladin immediately inked the deal to manufacture the Luna series from scratch with the same specifications as the modified PCN models. Although they were still referred to as Luna, these persocoms were known by Halladin, Marotaki and LMI as the "Luna 2" series."

"Meanwhile, Marotaki was on the verge of a breakthrough. With Halladin's help, he redesigned their original personality processor to be faster, more efficient and most importantly, a hardware-only unit. Marotaki's code was directly integrated into the processor, which removed the excessive strain on the hard drive's I/O. Combined with its increased speed the processor no longer needed faster CPUs and drives to perform. LMI funded the development of a CPU specifically designed to interface with the personality processor while Marotaki and Halladin used their profits from the Luna series to develop their new processor."

"History of Moonchild Systems?" Minoru asked, sipping on a cup of tea. "Please go on."

"Together, they produced Mindscape, LMI's fastest processor redesigned to use the Moonchild personality system as a coprocessor, all on a single chip. After this was presented to LMI's board of directors, funding was approved to create a brand new Moonchild series. Halladin and Marotaki oversaw the design of the new persocom, yet allowed the designers all the room they wanted for new ideas and innovations. Progress moved extremely fast and by the end of the year, Halladin and Marotaki presented the LMI board of directors with the Moonchild Series 3 Luna persocom, or Luna 3. It was fast, sleek, attractive and the personality system was flawless. The order to start producing the Luna 3 was given only three hours after the directors laid eyes on the prototype."

"Sadly, things took a turn for the worse when PCN, frustrated with ever growing sales of Moonchild persocoms filed suit against Moonchild and LMI Persocom for illegally manufacturing their persocom technology, i.e. the Luna 2. The ensuing court battle was quick, yet furious, with the courts deciding in the favor of Moonchild and LMI. Even with their win, LMI suffered huge losses due to court costs and Moonchild was all but bankrupt. On September 28th, 2205 LMI Persocom's board of directors decided unanimously to cease production of Moonchild persocoms due to Halladin and Marotaki's inability to pay for the expenses. Only 927 Luna 3 persocoms were ever produced. They were quickly put on store shelves and the profits from their sale were just enough for Halladin and Marotaki to walk away from it all with a bit of extra money in their pockets. The only remaining blueprints for the Mindscape processor and the original personality system reside with them. To this day, nobody has been able to reproduce their efforts."

"Correct." Minoru added. "You will not find specifications on their processor in that manual. Only data on the actual persocom."

Saburo took the last swig of his soda and ran to get another. "Do you think her personality system would be affected by the Chobits incident?" he asked.

"As I do not know how either system works, I cannot answer that." Kotoko replied.

Reia finally arrived after searching one entire side of the house for Saburo. "Come sit down, we were just talking about you." he said, patting his hand on the couch. A few moments later Sumomo and Yukimi come running into the room. Saburo quickly grabs Kotoko and stuffs her behind one of the couch pillows. "Have you seen Kotoko around?" Sumomo asks. Saburo shakes his head, "Nope, haven't seen her." The two mobiles go running to the other side of the house and Saburo pulls Kotoko out from behind the pillow.

"Thank you." she said.

"And to you for all the info." Saburo replied.


	18. Through Another's Eyes

**Author's notes: Wow, took me a while to finish this one. Been tied up as usual but don't worry, I haven't forgotten. This one started as a spontaneous idea and I decided to see if it would work. Hopefully I don't drive my readers away. Anyhow, here's the next chapter. Enjoy!**

Ch.17 - Through Another's Eyes

--

---

Exiting Standby. Systems Check.

Processor... M434 Mindscape... OK!

Memory... 655360 GB... OK!

Data Storage... 35.3 TB... OK!

---

_'Morning... already?'_

Reia opened her eyes and sat up, clutching the bed sheets against her bare skin. Turning to look beside her, she noticed that Saburo was already awake and out of the room. She slipped out of bed and pulled a change of clothes from her bag. While putting on a pair of black jeans and a small tee, the negligee that was hanging from the bedpost quickly caught her attention.

_'Don't want to leave that out for everyone to see.'_

She stuffed the nightwear deep into her bag along with her clothes from the evening before. Afterwards she spent a few moments to make the bed and pick up a bit. After the room was nice and tidy, she set off to locate Saburo. Reia poked her head around a couple of open doors, only to find empty rooms. From there she made her way down the long hallway to find Saburo, as well as almost everyone else gathered in the living room.

"Hey!" Saburo said. "Come sit down, we were just talking about you!"

_'About me? I hope it was something good.'_

She sat next to Saburo, who greeted her with a peck on the cheek. She returned the gesture, wrapping her arms around him and giving him a kiss. Moments later Sumomo and Yukimi come barreling into the living room. Saburo quickly picked Kotoko up and stuffed her behind one of the couch pillows. "Have you seen Kotoko?" asked Sumomo. Saburo shook his head, "Nope, haven't seen her." he replied. The two mobiles let out a small sigh and go running towards the other end of the house. Saburo stuffed his hand back behind the pillow, pulled out a slightly disheveled Kotoko and sat her on the table in front of him.

"Thank you." Kotoko said, adjusting her outfit.

"No problem, thank you for all the info." Saburo replied. "Anyway, what are we doing today?"

"Whatever you like. The beachfront is right outside and there's a boardwalk not too far from here." Minoru commented.

"Hey, that sounds like a good idea for later this evening. Anyone else in?"

"Sure! Sounds like fun!" Hideki replied.

"Chii!"

"I'm sure D will follow me anywhere I go." Leiko added, an evil grin on her face.

"What about you Reia?" Saburo asked.

She smiled and nodded.

"Excellent!"

"Till then, I'm gonna clean up and relax under the sun." Hideki said. He stood up and stretched his arms out, "I'll be back in a moment, then we can get changed." he told the young persocom, leaning down to kiss her. She put her arms around him, "Chii loves Hideki very much!" she said. Hideki smiled, "I love you too."

_'Love?'_

"I second that! Stretching out on the sand sounds like a good idea!" Saburo jumped up and tossed his now empty can in the bin. He looked down at Reia, who was staring off into nothingness and tapped her on the shoulder. "I'm going to go shower and change. You can join me if you want to go back down to the beach." he said. She pulled out her PDA and doodled, then turned it to face Saburo.

"I will be there in a moment."

"No problem!" he replied.

Leiko had already run off to wake Daisuke. Minoru picked Kotoko up and followed suit with Hideki and Saburo and wandered off to change with Yuzuki not far behind, leaving only Reia and Chii. Reia sat down next to the ivory haired persocom and started writing. She then turned the PDA to her.

"Can I ask you something?"

Chii nodded. "What does Reia want to know?"

Reia paused for a moment then continued writing. "What is love like?"

Chii thought for a moment, then closed her eyes and placed her hand on her chest. "When Chii is with Hideki, Chii feels different here."

_'I feel it too. It makes me feel warm. It makes me feel safe.'_

"Hideki is Chii's special person. Only Hideki makes Chii feel like this."

_'Only Saburo makes me feel protected. Nobody else.'_

"Hideki makes Chii feel special. Chii feels happy whenever Hideki is around. When Hideki is away, Chii feels empty."

_'He makes me feel like nothing ever has. He treats me like nobody ever has. I never want to leave his side.'_

"Hideki loves Chii for who Chii is. Hideki loves Chii even though there are things Chii cannot do."

_'I am broken, he knows I cannot be fixed, but to him it makes no difference.'_

Chii opened her eyes and looked over at Reia. "Does Reia love Saburo?"

_'I...'_

"Alright, are we ready?" Hideki asked, walking into the room. "Chii!" she replied energetically and jumped up to join him. Reia got up and walked down the hallway towards her room, thinking about what Chii had told her. She wasn't paying much attention to where she was going and walked straight into Saburo, almost sending both of them to the ground. He quickly regained his footing and grabbed hold of Reia to make sure she didn't fall. Saburo chuckled a bit, "Something on your mind?" he asked. Reia shrugged and pointed to the bedroom. "Oh, okay. I'll be waiting outside for you." he said, grabbing another quick kiss before letting her go. She closed the door behind him, walked into the bathroom and turned on the shower. The thoughts began to race through her mind again as she got ready to jump in. She stood almost motionless as the water ran down her body, small streaks dashing across her eyes as she pondered Chii's words and recalled memories of her and Saburo.

The day she came home with him...

The comfort and free will he gave her...

His encounter with Ushio...

Their first kiss...

_'He is special to me. I want to make him feel special too.'_

Reia felt the water start to get colder, a sign that she had been in there a bit too long. As she dried herself off, she stared into the mirror at her plastic ears and the logo that permanently marked her. She flipped some of her hair forward, covering her ears and placed her hand over the small crescent moon and serial number on her chest.

_'Does being a persocom make him feel any different?'_

Suddenly, there was a rapid knock at the bathroom door. "Reia? Reia, are you okay in there?" She quickly wrapped the bath towel around her and cracked the door open a few inches. "I was getting worried about you." Saburo said. She reached out of the door with her arm and pointed at the bed where her bikini was laying out. He picked up the swimsuit and handed it to her. She quickly slipped it on and walked out. "Is everything okay? You're acting a tiny bit odd." he asked. Reia nodded to him. Saburo shrugged his shoulders, "Eh, must be me." he replied.

-- -- --

Reia followed Saburo down to where he was relaxing previous to looking for her. He laid back down on his beach towel and gestured to her to lie down beside him. She sat down next to him and put her head on his chest in the same way she likes to do when he's asleep. Saburo reached over and tilted the beach umbrella over a little bit to cover her in the shade then sunk in to relax, putting his arm around Reia and closing his eyes.

"Come over here and play a game with us!" a familiar voice cut through the sound of the ocean waves.

"Later, Daisuke." he replied.

"Aww come on, you're not doing anything!"

"No, I'm doing _nothing_ and enjoying it."

"What about you, Reia?"

Her only response was putting her arm around Saburo's waist and scooting closer to him.

_'I'm doing exactly what I want to do right now.'_

"You guys are no fun!" Daisuke said and ran off to join the others.

Reia closed her eyes and used the time in the sunlight to recharge while she continued to sort out her feelings. All these emotions were still new to her, and figuring them out was extremely confusing. The only one she recognized was fear, her time serving Ushio made that abundantly clear. Now, living with Saburo, a new rush of sensations swept over her, things she had never felt before, things she couldn't understand. Little by little, these feelings grew, some intensifying when she was near him, some when he was away. It was these feelings that made her kiss him that first time, but why, she did not know. It was like describing the color blue without having ever seen it.

"Hey, Reia. Sit up for a moment." Saburo's voice brought her back to reality.

_'Huh? Oh, okay.'_

"Almost forgot about this stuff." He reached into his bag and pulled out the gel that he picked up yesterday. "Best put some of this on you." He read the directions on the back of the tube out loud, "PCN Antioxidant gel, Protect your persocom from the elements! Instructions for use: Apply to persocom's body, making sure to cover all areas and joints." His eyes widened a bit, "All areas?" he said. Saburo looked up and down the beach, and turned his back towards the only group of people there, which were Minoru, Hideki and the others.

"Okay, turn around."

Reia turned around, facing away from Saburo. He scooted up close to her, putting one leg on each side of her. He opened up the tube and squeezed a bit onto his hand and then rubbed them together. "This stuff smells like flux." he said. (Saburo is referring to soldering flux, an electronics antioxidant) Reia tightened up as Saburo's hands moved across her body; causing everywhere he touched to feel alive.

_'Sa... bu... ro...'_

The feeling intensified as he continued, building every time he touched somewhere new. His soft touch was the only thing she could focus on. As soon as he touched her leg, she whipped around and knocked him to the ground, grabbing hold and kissing him as deeply as she could.

"REI--mmffffmmmff!"

She let go, sitting back up, leaving a shocked Saburo lying on the sand. He didn't move for a moment, only looking up and breathing heavily. He slowly sat up, brushing the sand out of his hair and catching his breath. "Wha-- what was that and where did it come from?" he asked. She stared back at him blankly, a look of confusion across her face.

_'I... I don't know.'_

"We could have left you two alone back at the beach house, you know." Daisuke said, running up to them.

"I was only using the antioxidant gel." Saburo replied, holding up the now half-squashed tube. "Is this some stuff some sort of persocom aphrodisiac?" Daisuke started laughing. "Seriously!" Saburo said. Daisuke nodded with a half smile,

"Riiight. I'll just leave you two alone now." He ran back to the others, his laughter echoed across the beach, as did the solid thwack Leiko landed on the back of his head.

Saburo tossed the tube of gel next to his bag and turned back to Reia. She was curled up in much the same way that he first found her, arms wrapped around her legs and her forehead resting on her knees. She looked up at him and reached into the bag for her PDA, "I don't know what happened. I didn't mean to mess up." she wrote.

"Is there something wrong, Reia?" he asked.

She shrugged her shoulders and looked down at the ground next to Saburo.

"Come with me."

-- -- --

Saburo led Reia back to their room and sat down on the bed. "Come sit down." Saburo said, noticing a look of worry on Reia's face. She hopped onto the bed next to him. "What's up?" he asked. She stared down at her PDA, her right hand holding the stylus to the screen, motionless. Saburo put his arm around her and pulled her closer.

_'What if he laughs at me? What if he pulls away from me?'_

"Reia, what is it?" Saburo asked in a concerned tone.

Her hand began to move, writing out the words on the PDA. Saburo watched her hand, watched as the words took shape on the tiny screen. He paused, only staring at the PDA in her hand after seeing what she had written.

"Do you love me?"

He looked up into her eyes, staring blankly for a moment. He stood up and closed the door to their room, then sat back down beside her. He sat staring down at the floor for what seemed like forever to her.

"Reia..." he began to speak. He noticed her looking away; back down to the PDA in her hands.

"Reia, ever since I picked you up at that shop and took you home, you've turned my life upside down. It's no longer just me sitting in a half-lit apartment digging through piles of crap. I'm always doing something with you, either playing video games or out somewhere having a blast. Hell, I wouldn't be here at this... rather extravagant oceanfront house if I didn't see you curled up behind those stockroom shelves. And let me tell you, I didn't expect even a fraction of what I got when I found you." He scratched his head and made a slight smile, "I really didn't expect some things."

Reia smiled as Saburo pulled her back to him.

"But, there's one thing you need to realize. You're a persocom, I'm a person."

_'Oh... no...'_

Saburo saw her smile disappear and felt her slowly move away. He put his finger under her chin and lifted her head up, then reached for her PDA and tossed it on the bed behind him. "I wasn't finished." he said, taking her hands in his.

"You're a persocom, I'm a person. Not everyone is going to have the same views about us that Daisuke, Hideki and the others do. It's not going to be an easy thing. I could care less what some idiot walking down the street thinks, but I need to know, even though it will be difficult... is this... me and you... us... is this what you want?"

Reia nodded.

"Are you sure?"

She nodded again.

He let go of her hands and gently put his arms around her. He gently kissed her and then fell back on the bed, resting her head on his chest. He ran his fingers through her hair, feeling her inch closer every time his fingertips touched her.

"To answer your question... yes. I have for a while now." he said.

'Me too.'


	19. Untimely Closure

**Author's Notes: Quicker on the update this time! I've been wanting a way to put this part of the story in and hopefully this does the trick.  
**

**Also, as per many of my reviews, I am hammering out a chapter with what seems to be the most requested thing to see next. If you've followed the story, you know what that is. ;)**

**Here we go, Chapter 18.** **Enjoy!**

Ch. 18 - Untimely Closure

--

"Saburo! Saburo!" Daisuke called out, walking up and down the house. Making his way down the hall, he reached the room that Saburo and Reia were sharing for the weekend. "Are you in there Saburo?" he said, knocking on the door. "Hey, wake up!" Daisuke continued knocking until he saw the door open about an inch, Saburo staring out with his face pressed against the opening.

"What... is it?" Saburo said through his teeth.

"Sun's going down." Daisuke replied.

"I'm quite aware of that fact."

"Good, now get out here so we can go to the boardwalk."

"Alright, give me a minute." Saburo replied and quickly closed the door. He walked back over to the bed and laid back down, cuddling up next to Reia. "Hey you." he whispered, kissing her lightly on the cheek. "Time to get up." Reia opened her eyes and turned around to face him. She hadn't gone into standby like she usually does but Saburo didn't mind, the ever so faint whirring and clicking comforted him. It was a sound he was used to hearing every night from his machines at home.

"Everyone's going out." he said.

Reia nodded and sat up on the side of the bed. She picked her bikini up off the floor and put it in her bag, then went into the bathroom and grabbed her clothes from the morning and slipped them on. Saburo dug into his bag and pulled out a clean shirt. He grabbed his pants and quickly tossed both on.

The others were waiting outside when Saburo and Reia finally caught up, sans Yumi and Ueda. Saburo looked around for them before asking when they would be coming. "They had prior engagements and left early." Minoru answered. "Aww, that's no fun!" Saburo said. Everyone began heading towards the boardwalk, Minoru taking the lead since he knew where to go.

Daisuke walked closer to Saburo, "So, why did you two disappear all of a sudden?" he asked.

"We had some things to talk about." Saburo replied.

"I'm sure you did."

"Daisuke..."

"I'm just saying... looked kinda suspicious."

"Let's just leave it at that."

Daisuke laughed, "Alright."

-- -- --

The boardwalk was filled with people, a stark contrast to Minoru's quiet corner of the beach. There were small shops and restaurants all the way up and down one side with the ocean trailing on endlessly into the horizon on the other. Chii spotted a small bookstore and ran off towards it with Hideki quickly chasing after her. "I'm going to go with them." Minoru said, and followed behind with Yuzuki.

"Well, it's just us again." Daisuke commented.

"Seems that way." Saburo replied.

Leiko piped up, "Don't worry, there's lots to do here! Let's go, let's go!"

The four broke off from the rest of the group and headed down the boardwalk, checking out each of the tables and small stores. Reia stopped at a table with an assortment of small pieces of jewelery on them. She looked over at Saburo and pointed down at the table. "Oh, these?" he asked, "These are earrings." Reia tipped her head, not grasping the concept. Saburo picked up the pair that she was pointing at, small stars each with a crescent moon dangling below them, and held them next to his earlobes. "They are worn here." he pointed out. He handed them to Reia and she held them up to her ears, which looked pretty good since her ears were very slim.

"Hey, not bad!" Saburo commented.

"Your persocom can wear those, you know." the lady behind the table said.

"Piercing?"

"Not quite. More like drilling." she picked up an extremely tiny drill and showed it to him.

"I guess that's safe. So, what do you think? Want 'em?" Reia's face lit up. She nodded, smiling.

"How much is the... drilling?"

"Free with the earrings. They're 3300 yen." the lady replied.

Saburo handed her the money, "Okay, come with me and show me where you want them." she told Reia. They went into the small store where the table was sitting and after a few moments a small high speed drill began doing its work. Shortly afterwards, Reia walked back out, the earrings dangling near the bottom of her ears. Leiko runs up to her, "Lemme see! Oh those are perfect!" she said. Reia walked up to Saburo and pointed the earrings out to him. "Quite nice!" he said. She smiled and shook her head slightly, making soft clicking noises with the earrings. They continued down the boardwalk and Saburo pointed out a small photo booth.

"You and Leiko need a picture." he said.

Leiko dragged him into the booth. A few moments later, a bright flash and a picture dropped out of the side of the machine. Daisuke and Leiko emerged from the small booth and snagged their picture. "See, you look great!" she said. "I look like I'm out of it." Daisuke replied. He walked up to Saburo and pointed to the machine. "You've got a picture frame back at the house, it's your turn." Saburo walked into the booth and sat down. He then gestured for Reia to come over. "Sit." he said, patting his hands on his lap. He slid his money into the machine while Reia stumbled into the machine. "Yeah, these things are tight." Saburo commented. She sat down and he pressed the button below the camera. "Smile!" he said.

POOF, flash of light.

Reia grabbed onto Saburo, looking around very rapidly. She calmed down quickly thereafter and looked over at Saburo, pointing to her eyes. "Yeah, I'm with you on this one. You're just a splotch of colorful light right now. The two squeezed out of the booth and Saburo picked up their photo. "Now that's choice!" he said, and passed the photo to Daisuke.

"Looks nice."

"I like it too!" said Leiko.

Minoru and the others caught up with them outside the photo booth. "You know that camera flashes will blind a persocom's optics for a few seconds, correct?" Minoru asked. "Yeah, we kinda found that out." he replied.

"What is that?" Chii asked, pointing at the machine.

"It's a photo booth. You go in and it takes your picture." Hideki replied.

"Chii wants a picture with Hideki like Daisuke and Leiko's!"

"Well, how about we put all eight of us in there?" Saburo laughed, stretching his hands out and walking towards the machine. As Saburo is slowly plowing towards the machine, a soft female voice comes from behind the group.

"Saburo?" the voice asked.

He stopped dead once he heard that voice, like he had just walked into a brick wall.

"Is that you, Saburo?" the girl behind him asked again.

The others turn around to see who was behind them. She was a young girl, brunette, about Saburo's height, wearing a small skirt and long sleeved shirt. Daisuke stood up straight and stepped back after seeing her. Leiko wrapped her hands around his arm and leaned over to him. "Who's that?" She asked.

Daisuke replied with a hint of anger in his voice, "Ila..."

Ila stepped forward, "Saburo?" she asked again.

"What do you want, Ila?" Daisuke asked.

"I want to talk to Saburo."

"I'm sure he wants nothing to do--"

"Daisuke." Saburo interrupted.

He turned around to face her. "Hello, Ila." he said. She walked up and hugged him, "I haven't seen you in a while." Saburo did not put his arms around her. "There's a good reason for that." he replied. She let go of him and stepped back. "Saburo... I want to talk to you."

"About?" he asked.

"Just some... things." Ila replied.

Saburo stood silent, then looked over to Reia. "Stick with the group for a little while, I'll be right back." Reia slowly walked over and joined the group, a worried look across her face. "Why are you even talking to this girl?" Daisuke asked. Saburo shook his head at him and silently mouthed out the word "Later". He walked out towards the beach, Ila beside him. Reia watched the two as they walked away. "Don't worry." Daisuke said, walking up behind her. "He won't fall for her crap again."

-- -- --

"So, where's what's his face?" Saburo asked.

"Tetsumi?"

"Yeah, mister make-me-one-with-the-concrete."

"Are you still hung over on that?" Ila replied.

"Hung over on it? You left me for him, and he pummels me into the ground! That kinda runs deep, Ila."

"It wasn't my fault, I couldn't stop him. Anyway, we broke up shortly after that."

"Why am I not suprised?" Saburo said.

The two walk down the steps of the boardwalk onto the beach below. "I don't have much to say to you, Ila." Saburo said.

"Just give me a chance to talk." she replied.

"Fine. Speak."

"I'm sorry for what happened, but that's in the past. I was wondering if we could make amends."

Saburo raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean by... amends?"

"Well, I was wondering... could we could start over?" Ila asked.

Saburo stopped walking, "What! Are you kidding me?"

"I never forgot about you. I never did."

"Ila, this might come as a suprise to you but I have a girlfriend." Saburo replied.

"I didn't see any girlfriend." Ila said.

"Yes you did, Ila."

"Humor me."

"She was around my arm when you found me."

"THAT is your girlfriend!" Ila laughed. "You have got to be joking me!"

"You don't see me laughing, do you?"

"So you bought a persocom to be your girlfriend. That's cute."

"You know nothing about us, you have no right to speak of us that way!"

"And I bet you programmed her to be perfect in the sack, too." Ila commented.

"Don't start, don't you even start!" Saburo yelled.

"Oh what, you're trying to pawn some plastic doll off as your girlfriend!"

"You think that just because you reappear one day, you can just walk right back into my life? I'm happy, I have someone who loves me and will always be there for me, and that's more than I can say for you!"

"You're just living some fantasy with a machine! What can that thing do for you that I can't?"

"Her name is Reia and she treats me better than you ever did!" he snapped.

"That's not true!" Ila screamed, tears falling from her eyes.

"She never cheated on me! She never watched as her new 'boyfriend' pounded me into the ground! And you know what? She never will!"

"I said I was sorry, what more do you want!" she yelled in between her sobbing.

"A lot of good that does now! I trusted you, I cared for you, and you used me and left me for dead!"

Ila fell to her knees on the sand. "I... I'm sorry. she sobbed. "I have always loved you, Saburo."

"Let me make this as simple as I can. I love Reia. Not you. Reia."

Ila didn't respond, only holding her hands over her face, crying. Saburo turned around and started walking away. He looked up and saw Reia standing only a few feet away. He stopped and looked at her with wide eyes. "Reia... I should have..." She shook her head and ran to him, wrapping her arms around him and laying her head on his shoulder. Saburo held her tightly, "All I wanted was closure." he said. Reia nodded. "Now I am going to get it." Saburo let Reia go and walked back over to Ila and bent down in front of her.

"Ila... We were over the day you chose him over me. We will never be together again. Maybe you will find the life you are looking for, but it won't be with me. When I walk away, it will be the last time I ever talk to you. So if you have anything to say to me, say it now."

She put her hands down and looked up at Saburo, eyes red and teared up. "Saburo... p-p please... give me another chance. Please."

Saburo stood up and looked down at her. "Goodbye Ila." He walked back to Reia and held out his hand. "Let's go." he said. He walked Reia back up to the boardwalk where Daisuke, Hideki and the others were waiting and watching. "Looks like that went well." Daisuke said.

"Yeah... peachy." he replied.

-- -- --

Saburo and Reia packed their bags for their trip back home in the morning. Saburo was still a bit tense from his encounter on the beach. He zipped up his bag and sat down on the bed. Reia sat next to him, and doodled on her PDA. "Are you alright?" she wrote. Saburo sighed, "Yes... I'm fine." he replied. "I just didn't expect to run into her, that's all."

"Did she hurt you?" Reia wrote.

"Yeah, she hurt me a lot."

"Did she break you?"

Saburo nodded. "I guess in a way she did." He put his arm around her and squeezed her lightly. "Like I said, we're all broken. One way or another."


	20. The Joy of Signing

**Author's Notes: Well, you all asked for it, so here it is! It's a bit short but it should do the trick. So here we go again, Chapter 19. Enjoy!**

Ch.19 - The Joy of Signing

--

"That can't be good." Saburo said, hearing plastic and glass scatter across his floor. He turned around to see Reia standing over what was left of her PDA. She quickly looked up at him and frantically tried to explain what happened, pointing to her hand and to the remains of the PDA. Saburo could see her shaking, watching his every movement.

'Oh crap.' Saburo thought to himself, recalling how she lost her voice in the first place. As he ran over to her, she started to curl herself up. He put his arms around her and sat her down on the bed with him. "It's okay, it's okay." he repeated, trying to calm her down. She buried her face into his chest, still pointing to her hand and the PDA. "Settle down, Reia." Saburo said. "Look at me for a moment." She sat motionless looking up at him, an expression of fright across her face.

"It's alright, I'm not mad." He picked up the busted PDA, "It was an old PDA anyway, I'm suprised it lasted this long." he said, tossing it on his computer table. "More project parts." The look of fear slowly faded away. Saburo traced the back of his index and middle finger down her cheek and pulled her closer. "I need you to realize that no matter what, I will never hurt you, okay?" Reia nodded. He leaned down and gently kissed her, "I love you way too much to even think about that." he said. She smiled and hugged him tightly.

"Looks like we need to figure out something new for you, though."

-- -- --

Saburo hammered away at his computer, pricing PDAs and searching for other solutions for Reia. Searching for 'persocom' and 'mute' led him to a site for the disabled which included assistance software for persocoms. His attention was caught by a sign language program for use in talking to the deaf. 'If it works for people who can't hear, it should work for a persocom who can't talk.' he thought to himself. The program was a free download so he snagged a copy. He turned to Reia who was in a button mashing frenzy on one of her games. "Hey, can you come over here when you get a sec?" Saburo asked. She paused her game and sat down on the edge of the bed next to him.

"Mind if I install something on you?"

Reia shook her head then flipped her ear open and zipped out a cable. She laid back on the bed in the same position as when Saburo first ran the diagnostic on her. He sat for a second, holding the cable in his hand, a half smile across his face. Having a girlfriend he could simply plug into his computer and install things on still took some getting used to.

"For all the effort persocoms put into trying to be human, there are some things about being a persocom that we will always envy." he said. Reia looked up and gave him a confused look. "Nevermind, just me rambling on. Anyway, here we go!" Saburo plugged Reia's cable into his computer, entered in a few commands and pressed enter. White streaks dashed across her eyes as the data transferred, a faint clicking happening every few seconds. The computer beeped and Reia came out of her trance. Saburo disconnected her and handed the cable back.

"So, can you use it? Does it work?" he asked.

Reia tipped her head to the side for a second, then sat up straight and immediatley began moving her hands and arms in rapid patterns. "I'm guessing so." Saburo said. She nodded in response. "Well, now all I have to do is learn. Want to come with me for a little outing?"

-- -- --

Saburo walked up and down the aisles of a small downtown bookstore. He thumbed through any book on sign language he could find, looking for the one that was the most comprehensive, yet easiest to understand. He made his decision, picking up a complete set that included a book, some videos and computer based tutorials. The price tag hit him a bit harder than expected, but skipping this week's electronics shop rummage would be worth it.

He found Reia near the front, deep into one of the gaming mags. She didn't see him coming up behind her, nor did she notice his arms slowly wrap around her waist until he squeezed her and rested his chin on her shoulder. She jumped out of reaction and turned to face him. "You're easy to sneak up on." he chuckled. Reia lightly bopped him on the head with the magazine she was reading and poked her tongue out at him.

'It's nice to see that she's really opening up.' he thought.

Saburo looked down at the magazine that she was reading, "We can get that too if you want." She handed it to him and they headed up to the counter. The manager pointed to the book set that Saburo chose, "That's an excellent set." he said. "All the reviews on it have been great." Saburo nodded, "Excellent, I was looking for a good start to signing since I basically have to hit the ground running."

"This should do the trick, then." the manager replied.

After leaving the bookstore, they walked down the small city street back towards home. Along the way, Saburo pointed out the persocom shop where he found Reia. "Remember this place?" he asked. She looked over at the store for a moment, nodded and then began signing to Saburo. After she was done, he raised his eyebrow at her, "I can't understand you yet." he said. Saburo thought for a moment, then gestured for Reia to follow him. "We need to get you something for the meantime."

The door bells at the electronics shop made that all too familiar jingle as Saburo walked in. "Makoto! Are you back there?" he called out loud.

"Saburo? Is that you?" a voice from one of the back rooms asked.

"Who else?" he replied.

An older man walked up to the front carrying a beat up box. He sat it down on the counter and started pulling parts out. He looked up at Saburo and noticed Reia behind him. "Wow, bought yourself a persocom?" he asked. Saburo shook his head, "Not exactly, but yes, she's with me."

"So, how's it going? I found a couple of those R49 controller cards you were looking for." Makoto said.

"Nice." Saburo replied. "Actually I'm looking for something else."

"Whatcha got in mind?"

"Got any PDAs behind that counter?" Saburo asked.

"Of course."

Makoto ducked down behind the counter and pulled out three PDAs. Saburo looked at each of them and handed one to Reia. "How's this one?" he asked. She tapped around on it and located a drawing program that worked similar to the one she was used to. She doodled for a second and handed it back to him. "I like it." was written.

"Works for me. How much?"

"Nobody buys these anymore, I'll throw it in with the controllers." Makoto replied.

'Damnit, Makoto! I really can't afford it, but you always know how to strike a deal!' Saburo thought to himself.

Saburo swiped his card through the reader and picked up his parts. He handed the PDA to Reia, "Hereya go, now don't drop this one." he said. She nodded and stuffed it into her pocket. "I'll have some new things in next week!" Makoto said as they were leaving. Saburo gave him a thumbs up as the door closed.

"Okay. Let's get home before I spend even more." Saburo laughed.

-- -- --

That night, Saburo sat down with Reia and opened the book set he had bought. He sat the discs aside and started flipping through the book. "Let's start with the basics, shall we?" The first few pages started with individual letters, and with Reia's help he quickly learned all of their signs. He also learned some simple words that night, 'hello', 'goodbye', and of course, 'I love you' were a few on that list.

Every night after work he would learn new words, and after a few weeks he had built a decent vocabulary, enough for Reia to begin talking to him without the PDA. She would sign to communicate with him and he would talk to her as normal. Reia still kept the PDA handy though, Saburo felt it best in case she needed to talk to someone who didn't understand sign language. Daisuke assisted as well, installing the signing program on Yukimi so she could serve as a translator.

Reia not only liked the freedom of not having to dig for a PDA every time she wanted to talk to Saburo, but she also felt that helping him learn brought them even closer together. She enjoyed the times just laying in bed, going through the book and teaching him, which sometimes led to him using his hands for more than just signing. She wanted to continue being that close to him, so one evening she pointed to one of the parts that Saburo picked up when they went out to buy the signing book.

"Teach me." she signed.

Saburo sat up on the couch and nodded. "Sure! I can do that." he said. "We can install that electronics program if you want--"

Reia shook her head. "I want you to teach me."

He smiled and nodded again. "Alright. Bring one of those boards over here." She picked one up and walked over to the couch and handed it to him. Saburo laid back in the corner of the couch and patted his hand on his leg. She sat down and rested her head on his chest, facing upwards, looking at the board that was in his hand.

"Well, this is your basic multi-drive controller card..."


	21. In Search of Mindscape, Part 1

**Author's notes: Hey everyone, thanks again for all the reviews! This will be my first two-part'er. I'm still running through my head how I want this to play out, so it gives me a bit of extra time to work on it, and keeps you guys on a cliffhanger! MWAHAHAHAHA! I'm not too mean, am I?**

**Chapter 20! As always, Enjoy!**

--**  
**

Ch.20 - In Search of Mindscape, Part 1

--

"Ahh! Finally, the weekend is here!" Saburo announced, falling back on his bed. Reia hopped up on the bed on top of him, leaned down and greeted him with a nice, long kiss. "And that was a very nice start to it!" he added, smiling. "So, what should we do?" Reia sat up and tipped her head. After a few seconds she shrugged her shoulders, "I don't know." she signed.

"Well, I've got an idea." Saburo slid his hands behind Reia's back, pulling her closer. "It starts something like this." he said, trailing small kisses across her cheek and down her neck, his hands moving up her bare back, taking her shirt with them.

RING!

The phone shatters their focus on one another.

"Awww, come on!" Saburo said, reaching over and grabbing the phone.

"Armageddon better be happening." he greeted the person on the other side.

"Did I interrupt something?" a confused Daisuke responded.

"It's all good." Saburo replied, using his free hand to slip Reia's shirt off. "Just hacking my way through a few... security layers." He fumbled a bit with the small bra clasp, "Some tougher than others."

"Uh huh." Daisuke said. "Let me guess... the lower layers are going to be the difficult ones."

"Touche. So what's up?"

"M called me and asked if I could bring you by this evening. He said he found something you'd be interested in."

"Did he say what it was?"

"Nope. Just said to bring you with me."

"I'm game. What time?" Saburo asked.

"Give me an hour to straighten up, and be waiting outside."

"Will do!"

Saburo pressed the 'end' button on the handset. He picked up the cradle and umplugged the phone line then tossed the handset over on the couch.

"Solves that problem. Now, where were we? Oh yes, now I remember..."

-- -- --

"Please, this way. Minoru is waiting outside." Yuzuki said, directing Saburo, Daisuke and Reia to the back door. Outside, Minoru was sitting at a small table, a stack of papers in his hand. "Ah, hello again." he said. "Please have a seat." Saburo pulls out one of the chairs for Reia and grabs the one beside her for himself. Daisuke sits down next to him and Yukimi jumps off his shoulder onto the table. Minoru slides the stack of papers towards Saburo.

"What's this?" he asked.

"Several months back, Yuzuki tried breaking into the government's persocom database, an attempt to find info on the Chobits series. Along with that info, she also managed to download several other pieces of information."

"Just a mass download before they caught on to her." Saburo replied.

Minoru nodded. "All the information pertaining to the Chobits was given to Hideki. The rest was stored away after the incident with Chii, and I never bothered looking through it until recently. I was hoping that there might have been some info about Moonchild and its two creators, information that may help you with Reia."

"I'm guessing you found something."

"Very little, but yes." Minoru flipped through a few of the pages, "The two men in this picture are Marotaki and Halladin."

"The two that created Moonchild." Saburo commented.

"Correct. The persocom next to them is Luna, the prototype Kotoko mentioned. There are also a few flowcharts and the conceptual ideas for their original coprocessor. The documents also show the last known whereabouts of the two engineers but the information is quite dated."

Reia looked over at the photo and started to sign. "These are the ones that created me?" she asked.

Saburo nodded. "Yes. I guess you could call them you parents." he replied.

Minoru raised his eyebrows, "You taught her sign language?"

"Actually, she taught me. I simply installed a signing program."

"A clever solution. Quite impressive." Minoru replied.

Saburo kicked back and started going through the data. Dated indeed, the latest date was three days after Moonchild closed up shop, only listing the creators' last known residences. Halladin moved back to America and Marotaki returned home near the southern tip of Japan. It also included a complete list of patents that both men held, all of which pertained to persocom technology. However, there was one thing missing...

"Why isn't Mindscape on the list?" Saburo asked.

"Hmm?" Minoru sat his cup down and gave Saburo a puzzled look.

"Mindscape. It isn't in their patent list, nor is the actual technology it's based on."

Minoru took another look at the papers. "That is most peculiar. I would have expected something like that to be highly protected from a legal standpoint."

"As would I." Saburo replied.

Saburo sat up and tapped Yukimi on the shoulder. "Can you do a search for me?" he asked.

"Absolutely" Yukimi replied cheerfully.

"Run two searches. First, Michael R. Halladin. Second, Tsubi W. Marotaki."

Yukimi's eyes glazed over as light streaked across them. "1,071 results for Michael R. Halladin. 2,884 results for Tsubi W. Marotaki."

"Filter results using term 'Moonchild'."

"277 and 109, respectively." Yukimi said.

"That's a bit better. Now, sort by date, latest first, and read the first results for both."

"Result for Michael R. Halladin. Obituary. Dated March 3, 2206. Michael Roberts Halladin, respected electronic engineer, pioneer of persocom technology and co-creator of Moonchild Systems, passed away Monday due to complications during heart surgery. At age 44, he is survived only by his wife, Sarah Eliza Halladin. Funeral services will be held on March 5 at Livingston Funeral Home, Silicon Valley, California."

"Damn." Saburo said.

Minoru simply nodded.

"Yukimi, second result."

"Result for Tsubi W. Marotaki. Newspaper article. Dated August 19, 2206. Kagoshima steps forward into the future with new technology designed to deliver continuous network connectivity throughout the city. Dubbed STRATOS, it is a wireless system designed to connect all computers and persocoms to the internet from any location within and fifty miles outside of Kagoshima. The project was built and deployed by a team of engineers headed up by Tsubi Marotaki, a famous software designer. Marotaki has developed several projects to connect cities and small towns, as well as being the co-creator of the once well known Moonchild persocom line. The name STRATOS, which stands for Synchronous--"

"That's good enough, Yukimi." Saburo interrupted.

"Understood!" she replied.

"Well, it's a start."

"A start to what?" Daisuke asked.

Saburo cracked a devilish half-grin. "Finding answers."

"Is there any way I can help?" Minoru added.

"I assume you have a lot of computer power in there."

"Of course."

"May I?" Saburo asked.

Minoru nodded. "Absolutely."

-- -- --

Saburo sat at Minoru's terminal, twirling the system's stylus in his fingers. Yuzuki connected herself and stood to the left of Saburo, Reia connected and stood to his right. "So, where to start?" he said. A couple of taps brought up a detailed network map of the globe. "Well, we don't need THAT much.", he commented, highlighting the southern tip of Japan. "Now, Yuzuki. Display all ISP's currently serving this area." Light danced across her eyes as the information displayed onscreen. "Seven providers listed." she said. The area Saburo highlighted was divided into seven areas, each a different color, along with the name of each provider.

"I'm sure he would use the network he helped build, how many provide connectivity for the STRATOS network?"

"Two."

"Wow, that's still a lot." Saburo kicked back in the chair and thought for a moment. "Okay, give this a shot. Reia, can you give me a list of all addresses currently being used by both ISPs?" She nodded and went into her data processing trance. "Yuzuki, scan those addresses for any open ports and display the results." Yuzuki then joined Reia in processing.

"That... might take a little while." Minoru said.

"Unforunately so." Saburo replied.

About twenty minutes later, both Yuzuki and Reia popped out of their data processing trance. "We have finished." she said. Saburo turned around to the console, "Display the results, please." The results popped up onscreen and Saburo and Minoru began sifting through them, looking for anything out of the ordinary. They attempted connecting to each of the systems that caught their attention.

"Naah, that's just somebody's home music server."

"A bank? Gotta keep that in mind."

"What the... AAAAAAHHHHHH! CLOSE IT! CLOSE IT! CLOSE THE WINDOW!"

Near the bottom of the list, Minoru pointed out an odd result. "This doesn't correspond with any normal server specifications, and the open port numbers are definitely not for normal services." he said.

"Well, let's give it a shot." Saburo said, tapping on the list and opening a remote terminal to the system. Once he connected, the terminal display simply returned "HARDWARE KEY REQUIRED".

"It wants an encryption key?" Saburo asked in a puzzled tone. "Good luck find--"

Yuzuki stood tense for a moment, her eyes flashing at an extreme speed. "Yuzuki!" Minoru shouted as he ran over to her, startled by what was happening. She snapped back after a brief moment and looked down at Minoru, "Something scanned my systems." she said. Saburo raised an eyebrow as he looked back down at the terminal, which was now displaying the words "INCORRECT KEY".

"Wait... if it found Yuzuki and scanned her for this key..." Saburo thought out loud. He quickly looked up at Reia, her eyes streaking at the same high speed as Yuzuki's. However, the computer did not let go of her as quickly as it did with Yuzuki. She began silently speaking, matching the words that were being displayed.

MOONCHILD ZERO ZERO ZERO ZERO THREE FIVE SIX

KEY ENCODE F391-AACF-D171-0009-C3D9-1011

KEY ACCEPTED

"Minoru... we might have found something."


	22. In Search of Mindscape, Part 2

**Author's Notes: Here we are again, next chapter up and running! Hope you like it!**

**Chapter 21, Enjoy! **

Ch.21 - In Search of Mindscape, Part 2  
--

MOONCHILD ZERO ZERO ZERO ZERO THREE FIVE SIX

KEY ENCODE F391-AACF-D171-0009-C3D9-1011

KEY ACCEPTED

"Minoru... we might have found something."

"Indeed." Minoru replied.

Saburo looked back at Reia, her eyes still streaking at an extreme speed. "Reia, are you all right?" he asked. She did not respond. "Reia! Can you hear me?" He put his hands on her arms and shook her softly. She came out of her trance and looked down at him, smiling. "Yes, I am okay." she signed.

"What happened?" Saburo asked.

"I don't know." she replied.

Moments later, Minoru's terminal starts beeping. Saburo turns his attention to the screen, noticing a message on the console connected to the remote system.

"REQUESTED VIDEO CONNECTION. ACCEPT?"

"This one's on you, man." Daisuke said, moving away from view of the terminal. Saburo accepted the connection and shortly afterwards an older man sitting back in a chair with several computers behind him appeared onscreen.

"Looks like someone finally found me." the man said. "To whom do I owe this unexpected surprise?"

"Ummm..." Saburo mumbled, looking over at Minoru and Daisuke.

"Your name, boy, your name!"

"Saburo." he quickly responded. "I'm assuming you're Tsubi Marotaki."

"You would be correct." Marotaki replied. "Now I suppose you want to know all about Mindscape, don't you? That's what everyone else wants to know."

"Not entirely." Saburo gestured for Reia to come closer to him. "Mr. Marotaki, this is Reia. Reia, this is... well... your father." Reia waved to him and started signing. "She says it's a pleasure to meet you." Saburo said.

"Why is she signing?" asked Marotaki.

"That's part of why I wanted to talk to you. She had a rather bad experience with her first owner that left her unable to talk. Her main system board is cracked right across the voice processor. Is there any way to fix this? Do you have any parts that could help?"

Marotaki leaned forward and typed away. Immediately afterwards, Reia stands straight up and her eyes start flashing again. Saburo jumps slightly and takes hold of her hand. "Don't worry." Marotaki said, "Just running a quick diagnostic." Reia snapped back into reality a few minutes later and Marotaki began reading the diagnostic. "Well..." he sighed, "The damage is quite extensive. There isn't much that can be done. All the parts from Moonchild became property of LMI after we closed down and the few that still exist are incredibly rare. Unfortunately Michael passed away and he was the only person who knew exactly how the hardware worked."

Saburo nodded. "I expected as much."

"If you intend to get rid of her, I will gladly take her in."

Saburo shook his head. "Absolutely not." he replied, putting his arm around her.

Marotaki smiled, "You must be quite close to her."

"More than you know."

"What else did you want to ask me?" Marotaki asked.

"Several months ago, there was this... incident. I'm not too sure how everything played out personally, but my friend here will be able to fill you in better than I could." Saburo looked over at Minoru and pointed to the screen. Minoru introduced himself and retold Chii's story to Marotaki.

"So... Hibiya pulled it off, did he?"

"Hibiya?" Saburo cocked one of his eyebrows, the name sticking out for some strange reason.

"He designed the Chobits persocoms." Minoru added.

"I remember him telling me about discovering a way to give a persocom human-like emotions." Marotaki said. "The government was extremely against such a thing and banned him from using the technology in the development of any persocoms. But Hibiya was stubborn; I knew he wouldn't listen to them. Giving two custom models this program and having them upload it to the world's persocoms is very ingenious... by the time all is said and done, it's too widespread to do anything about it."

"Do you think this would affect Mindscape in any way?" Saburo asked.

"That was one thing about Hibiya... if he said something would happen, you can be certain that it would. During the development of the original Moonchild, he was one of the few people who knew what Halladin and I were up to. He became very interested in our personality algorithms, most likely for his two Chobits persocoms. In the end he made us a deal... we turned over a copy of our research to him in exchange for data regarding his emotion software. Because of the government bans, we weren't allowed to use it in any of our persocoms whatsoever. However, what we did do was make provisions for his software in our designs. When we were developing the Mindscape processor, we designed it to integrate with Hibiya's program. Fortunately to LMI and the others working at Moonchild, it looked like simple extensions for future upgrades to the personality system."

"So what precisely happens when the emotion program is installed?" Minoru asked.

"It becomes directly integrated into the Mindscape processor." replied Marotaki.

"How is that possible?"

"The Mindscape processor is unique in that it is able to dynamically alter itself, even its own base instruction set. This, of course, is limited to the personality coprocessor since the main CPU core is a standard LMI issue persocom processor. The additional extensions we added were simply to force an upgrade if Hibiya's program were ever installed. All of the instructions and algorithms would then become a part of the processor."

"Which allows it to become a dynamic program as well." Saburo commented.

"You catch on quick."

"Is there anything else we should know?" Saburo asked.

"Only this. Hibiya's emotion program and the personality program are only parts of a greater whole, something that will change persocoms forever. I cannot tell you any more than that. Now, if you will excuse me, it's time for my afternoon walk."

"Thank you, Mister Marotaki."

Marotaki nodded, "I'm certain we will speak again soon."

Minoru's terminal went black for a moment and then returned to the network map and systems list. Reia looked down at Saburo and signed to him, "Something that will change persocoms forever?" she asked. "I'm not entirely sure." Saburo replied.

"There's a lot more to all of this than we expected." Minoru added.

-- -- --

A little over a week passed, and Saburo's talk with Marotaki was still fresh in his mind. Five words raised more questions than had been answered, 'Parts of a greater whole? What does it mean?' he thought to himself. A knock at his door startled him slightly, "One moment!" he said. He slowly lifted Reia's head off his chest and onto the pillow beside him. Jumping out of bed, he tossed on his jeans and shirt and opened the door.

"I have a delivery for Irutaya Saburo." the man on the other side announced. Saburo nodded and signed for it and went back inside. There was no return address or any markings on the padded envelope. Saburo opened it and inside was a letter, and a single disc.

_Surprised? You're not the only one that can track down somebody's whereabouts._

_I'm impressed by your knowledge as well as your views towards persocoms. During our talks last week, I was also able to talk to Reia through my computer. I realize how close you two are and the efforts you have put forth for her are admirable._

_That is one of the many reasons that I now entrust you with this._

_Use it wisely._

_-T. Marotaki_


	23. Taken!

**Author's Notes: You all have requested how you want this story to reach its finale and I will definitely take your collective advice. This chapter will be short and quick but I expect the later chapters to be longer as things progress along.**

**After this story is completed, I will turn my focus towards my next fic, Savant. I'm hoping you will enjoy it as much as you have enjoyed this one.**

**Oh, another thing to add... one of my readers has started creating fan art based on Broken, and his work is very impressive! He's still working on it but I am sure that you will be seeing it soon. We'll have to work out all the permissions to post, etc but that shouldn't be much of a problem.**

**Okay, I won't hold you up any longer. Here we go, chapter 22. Enjoy!**

Ch.22 - Taken!

--

"Saburo! More shipments just came in!"

"I'm already on it!"

Saburo's workday started busy and stayed that way. New shipments were moving in and out of the warehouse nonstop, but he and his coworkers kept up the pace and had things moving smoothly. Saburo didn't mind the work one bit, Daisuke was bringing Reia by at noon so anything that kept the clock moving was a good thing to him.

"Reia coming by today?" one of his coworkers asked while helping him move some boxes.

"Yep. Should be here around lunchtime."

"Great!" he replied. "Here we go, ready? One... two... three... lift!" they said in unison as they moved a rather large box onto a forklift pallet. After setting the box down they took a couple of seconds to wring their arms out. "How are the two of you doing?" his coworker continued.

"Not bad at all. Haven't had any troubles, really."

The warehouse phone rang and Saburo ran over to pick it up. "That must be Daisuke." he said. He picked up the receiver and answered with his normal workplace greeting, "G&X Supply, how can I help you?" There was no reply on the other side, only scuffling and the sound of things being knocked over before the phone was hung up. Saburo raised an eyebrow and looked at the phone receiver strangely before hanging it up.

'That was odd.' he thought.

"Was that them?"

"I don't think so." Saburo replied.

"Huh? You don't think so?"

"There was no one on the other end."

"It happens."

Saburo nodded and went back to work. Shortly after his boss came in and told everyone to break for lunch. Saburo had only a few more things to do before he was finished so he quickly handled that before stopping. Afterwards he walked around back to the table where everyone usually eats and met up with the rest of the group. Unfortunately Daisuke and Reia were not there waiting for him. He peered around the corner of the building expecting to see Daisuke's car pulling in or already parked, but it was not to be found. He scratched his head and walked back to the lunch table and sat down. "I would have expected them to be here by now. Wonder if traffic got bad." He kicked back and waited patiently for them to arrive. When Daisuke did finally arrive, he tore through the parking lot and screeched up to the table, almost knocking one guy down. Saburo immediately knew something was wrong... Leiko was shaking in the passenger seat and Reia was not with them. Daisuke threw open his car door and ran straight for Saburo. "She's gone!" he yelled.

"Wha... what?" Saburo replied nervously.

"Reia. Someone's taken Reia."

"WHAT!" he yelled, his hands shaking.

"When Leiko and I came to pick her up, we saw someone dragging her into a car. I ran after them before they took off but I didn't see who they were. Got here as fast as I could to tell you."

"We need to go find her... we need to find her!"

His coworkers immediately jumped up, "We'll cover for you!" they said.

"Go!" Saburo's boss yelled. "Don't ask, just go!"

Saburo and Daisuke jumped into the car and headed back towards Saburo's apartment. "I'm going back to your place so we can take a look around. Don't know if she left something that would give us an idea of who took her or where she is but it's worth a shot.

"Oh, I know exactly who took her." Saburo replied, his fear quickly turning into anger.

"Well we have no idea where this guy lives. Best place to start looking is where she was taken from."

Saburo nodded and Daisuke put the pedal to the floor. They pulled up to Saburo's apartment complex and stepped out. "This is where their car was parked." Daisuke said, pointing near the main entrance. He then pointed out towards the street, "They drove off in that direction." Saburo searched around frantically for something she may have dropped or left behind for him to find.

'Come on, Reia. Give me some sort of idea where he might have taken you...' he thought, staring down at the ground below his feet. His mind wandered, thinking about the times they spent together and worrying about what may be happening to her right now. He felt helpless, and this only served to heighten his anger.

"Saburo! I saw somebody by your apartment window, there's someone up there!" Daisuke said, pointing up at the building.

Saburo cracked his knuckles and cracked a very devious smile. "Good. Looks like I am going to get some answers."

The three of them rushed upstairs towards Saburo's apartment. The door was slightly opened with some of his parts lying outside. Saburo quickly ran to the door and pushed it open. "Who in the hell are you!" he yelled.

"Come now Saburo, is that any way to treat a guest?" a familiar voice replied as the person turned around.

Saburo jumped back just as Daisuke and Leiko reached the entrance.

"... Ila?"


	24. Conspiracy

**Author's notes: Sorry for not updating quickly, been battling the flu and I'm finally feeling well enough to actually become productive again. Well, enough of that, time to get on to what you're here for. Hopefully this came out as well as I hope it did... in either case, here's chapter 23.**

**Enjoy!**

Ch.23 - Conspiracy

--

"Happy to see me?" Ila asked.

"Where's Reia?" Saburo replied in a very angry tone.

"Awww come on, you're not playing along."

"WHERE IS SHE?" Saburo yelled. He clenched his fists as he took a deep breath, trying to control his anger. "Ila, why?" he continued.

"It's funny the people you meet these days. Remember when you left me on that beach? Well it turns out that someone else was taking a particular interest in our little discussion. After you walked away with that doll of yours, he was quick to approach and comfort me. Very cute guy, seemed to know who your fantasy girl was, too."

"Ushio..." Saburo said under his breath.

"We both wanted something. I wanted a little payback and he wanted your persocom. I knew where you lived, still had a key to your apartment and getting rid of that worthless persocom of yours would eliminate the... competition."

Saburo snapped. He drew back with a tightly closed fist and lunged forward at Ila. Daisuke quickly caught him and pulled him back, struggling to keep Saburo at bay. "Why do you find joy in ruining my life!" Saburo screamed as loud as he could, fighting to break loose from Daisuke's grip. "You're cute when you're mad, do you know that?" Ila smiled. "Fortunately for me Daisuke's newest catch has him properly trained."

"Excuse me!" Leiko popped up.

"Shit..." Daisuke said, knowing he couldn't keep both Saburo and Leiko under control.

"Hmm... I expected better of Daisuke. Thought he was into cute girls, not short, little--"

SMACK! Leiko landed a swift fist to Ila's face, knocking her back on the couch. Before Ila had a chance to react, Leiko grabbed a hold of her shirt and yanked her into another punch. Daisuke quickly ran to catch Leiko before she could continue and dragged her away from Ila, who was holding her hands over a cut on her face. Ila finally stood back up and faced Daisuke, still trying to calm Leiko down. "Like I said, properly trained." Daisuke quickly grew tired of Ila's taunting and having to keep Leiko under control. For only a hair under 5 feet tall, she was quite strong.

"You're forgetting something, Ila. In order for me to keep her off of you, I had to let go of him."

Ila turned around to see Saburo only inches away from her. He put his arm around her and sat down on the couch. "So Ila, are we going to do this the easy way or the fun way?" Ila laughed, "You're rich!" she replied.

"The fun way it is, then." He breathed in deeply, smiled, then turned to look at Daisuke and said, "Ya know... I could really go for a cigarette about now."

"What?" Daisuke replied.

Ila quickly looked at Saburo, the arrogant smirk on her face disappeared immediately. "What are you doing?" she asked.

"What's it look like? I'm having a smoke." Saburo smiled.

He used his free hand to gesture him to let go of Leiko. Saburo stood up and reached into Daisuke's shirt pocket and pulled out his cigarettes and lighter, then sat back down next to Ila, an ear-to-ear grin across his face. "I never told you the truth about why I quit smoking." Saburo commented. Daisuke looked at his friend with a look of sheer confusion on his face. Ila tried to jump up from the couch but Saburo quickly caught her and softly sat her back down. "Oh, don't you know?" Saburo said in the same sarcastic tone that Ila used earlier. Daisuke shook his head, still confused.

"Please don't..." Ila pleaded.

"You're so cute when you're scared." Saburo replied. "Are you afraid I'm going to do this?" Saburo flicked the lighter inches away from her face. Ila dug her fingernails into the couch and tried to push herself away, her breathing increased as she started trembling.

"The reason I quit smoking while we were in college is because Ila here is extremely pyrophobic. She wouldn't come anywhere near me while I had a cigarette in my hand. Being the wonderful man I am, I quit to be with her. First time I lit one up near her she freaked out... kinda like this." Saburo let go of the button on the lighter and darted his hand towards her. Ila screamed and curled up, holding her hands over her head. "Stop, please!" she blurted out. "Keep it away from me! Keep it away!"

"Now, Ila..." Saburo said, lighting his cigarette and taking a deep pull. "Where's Reia?"

Ila quickly gave up Ushio's address and told them that was where he had taken Reia. All the yelling and fighting had caused the neighbors to alert the police. Saburo told them what had happened and they were more than willing to side with him when questions started being asked. Daisuke took the information they got from Ila and gave it to Yukimi. "Get directions from here to this address, fast." he said. "Working on it now!" Yukimi replied. Her eyes glazed for a few seconds and a faint beeping was heard from her, "Directions compiled! Ready to start program." she said.

"We'll stay here until the police arrive." Daisuke said, handing Yukimi and his keys to Saburo. "Go bring her back."

"Are you sure about this?" Saburo asked, looking at his friend's keys.

"Just bring all three of them back in one piece."

-- -- --

Reia landed on the hardwood floor after being tossed into a small room by her kidnapper. She recognized his face, one of Ushio's friends. She stood up and looked around, a feeling of fear overwhelming her.

She knew exactly where she was.

She looked around the extremely familiar room, a guest bedroom on the far side of the house. A small bed and dresser sat alongside one wall with a mirror hanging opposite of them above a recliner. A single window looked out onto the field she had ran across to escape this place almost a year ago. Suddenly, the door opened behind her and the one person she did not want to see was the person that walked through it.

"Well... well... Welcome home, Reia." Ushio said.

Reia backed away as he entered the room. Every time he took a step forward, she took one back. "What, no fond greeting? I would have expected more for all the work I put into tracking you down." She continued to back off, keeping herself out of his reach. Ushio cracked a smile and walked away, sitting down on the recliner.

"Sure, it would have been less trouble to let you go and just buy another persocom to replace you... but I wanted to make my point clear, I wanted to make an example of you. I know about all these rumors of free will. I don't know if they're true and I don't honestly care because you and every other persocom here are MY property and you will be subservient and obedient!"

Reia shuddered as he spoke.

"Then there's the guy you ran to, oh I really don't like him. So it's no surprise I jumped on an opportunity to find out where he lives. Must hurt to be turned down for something like you. She thought this could somehow win him back. Naive little girl. But after what he did on that beach, I'm not surprised she helped me." Ushio held his hands together and brought them up to his face, "But he loves you!" he said in a very sarcastic tone. "How cute. How sickening. I'm glad I ripped you two apart just because of that!"

Reia looked down towards her feet, waiting for Ushio to finish. Her eyes snapped back to him when he started to stand up. "Awww, you look sad." he said. "Don't worry, I'll have you erased and reinitialized so you won't remember a thing. He slowly approached her, backing her into a corner. "But first, I have a few plans." He walked up to her until he was only inches away. "Call me the sick one, but I want to see what he was on about." Reia was frozen with fear at the sound of those words. He quickly grabbed her arms and threw her on the bed, then jumped on top of her and worked to pin her hands down. Reia wrestled to break free of Ushio's grip as he tried to tear her shirt. He let his body slump down on hers, holding her down with his entire body weight. "Like I said, you won't remember anything." he whispered into her ear.

Reia's resistance slowly faded as she turned to look away from him. "Now, that's better." he said, picking himself back up and grabbing her shirt. As he got a tight grip to rip it off, Reia grabbed on tightly to his shoulders, looked up at him with a perfectly innocent smile and brought her knee up with all her force, slamming it right between his legs. Ushio let out a muffled scream, doubling over and falling off of her. She pushed him onto the floor and quickly ran out of the room.

"That's it!" Ushio yelled, pulling himself back on to his feet. "Time to stop playing around."


	25. Final Conflict

**Author's notes: Sorry, sorry, sorry! I know I have let this slip for a tad too long. Things got a bit busy and I had a bit of WB in deciding how to play this out. As always, I hope this meets your expectations. **

**Well, here it is, the 'last' chapter. All i need to do is write an epilogue and I can tag this one 'Complete'. If there are any requests of things you'd like to see a mini-chapter written about, drop me a line!**

**Without further delay, chapter 24. Enjoy! **

Ch.24 - Final Conflict

--

Reia ran across the hallway towards the stairs leading to the first floor. She jumped almost the entire staircase to make it down quickly, knowing Ushio couldn't do the same. She landed in a kneeling position once she hit the ground then stood back up and ran through the living room towards the main foyer.

She came to a sliding halt at the main door and reached for the keypad to unlock it. Reia entered the passcode she remembered, only to see 'DENIED' in large red letters. She tried again and again with no luck, frantically entering numbers and pulling on the handle.

"Are you trying to leave?" a soft female voice asked.

Reia looked up to see a persocom walking towards her, limping slightly. A persocom she recognized very well. Once she made eye contact, a quick streak of light dashed across the persocom's soft, green eyes.

"Reia?" she asked.

Reia reacted the same way, a flash of light illuminated her eyes. The persocom beside her was Kiku, perhaps Reia's only real 'friend' outside of Saburo and his group. Out of all of Ushio's persocoms, Kiku was the one she connected with most. She remembered the time the two of them spent together while they recharged, trying to make sense of the emotions they were involuntarily granted.

"It's good to see you again, Reia." Kiku said. She continued walking towards the door, lightly dragging her leg as she walked. Reia pointed to her leg, giving an expression of concern. Kiku lifted her dress up to her knees, revealing a long gash along her left calf. Some of the artificial muscle fibers were exposed, most of them torn. Reia tipped her head, curious as to what happened but unfortunately certain of the answer.

"My performance was not satisfactory." she said.

The conversation ended prematurely after the two heard Ushio's footsteps grow closer and louder.

"You need to go now."

Kiku leaned down and entered the passcode into the door's lock. As she pulled the door open, Ushio charged up to them and landed a solid fist to her face, hard enough that the sound echoed loudly through the foyer. Kiku hit the ground hard and slid several feet along the hardwood floor. Reia quickly ran over and kneeled down in front of her. "I must have done something wrong." Kiku said quietly, a smile still on her face. She looked away from Reia and towards something else, something behind her. Reia quickly spun around, still kneeling down beside Kiku.

"There won't be enough left of you to recognize when I'm done!" Ushio yelled. "And you, Kiku!" he continued, "I'll take care of you next!"

Reia's focus shifted towards the floor as Ushio yelled at them. She began to feel strange, something different, something she had never felt before. A burst of emotions that slowly coarsed through her body and drowned out her mind's fear with its own overpowering voice as she turned to look back at Kiku and thought of how they had been treated. Her body felt like it was on fire, her hands began to shake and the more she tried to suppress it, the stronger it became.

Anger. Hatred. Rage. All aimed at one single person.

Ushio reeled back and swung down towards Reia with all of his strength. His fist made a loud smack as it hit the palm of her hand and stopped almost instantly. She stood up and twisted his arm around, bringing him to his knees. He gathered what little strength he could muster through the pain shooting through his arm and took another swing at her. She easily fended it off and returned the gesture by burying her fist into his stomach. Ushio let out a howl that was heard through the entire house. She yanked his arm, throwing him to the floor. He attempted to hit her again, the only result being a backhanded fist to his face, spattering the floor with his blood.

"You... worthless piece of shit!" he yelled, wiping the blood from his face before lunging towards her. Reia quickly moved out of the way and grabbed Ushio by the back of his shirt as he ran past her and slammed him back to the floor. He immediately reached around and pressed his hands on his back while he kicked and flailed his legs, his screams of pain echoing loudly before dying down every time he ran out of breath.

For some reason she couldn't understand, watching him on the floor writhing in pain made her feel... satisfied. Finally getting to let loose all the pent up anger towards her former owner for all the suffering he had caused her and the countless persocoms that have come and gone through his hands filled a void that haunted her since the day she was activated, and realizing how easily she overpowered him only succeeded in driving her even more.

It wasn't until then that they both noticed that their fighting grabbed the attention of the other persocoms in the house. All of them were scuffed up or damaged in one way or another. They looked over at Kiku, still lying on the floor and then to Reia who was standing over their owner with tightly clenched fists.

"Why are you all just standing there? Do something!" Ushio yelled.

They stared at Ushio for a moment and then a streak of light crossed their eyes almost simultaneously. Without saying a single word, they turned around and returned to their work.

"Wha... Where are you going?"

Reia stepped slowly towards Ushio, keeping pace with him as he tried to crawl away. She looked straight at him, shaking her head slowly. The expression on his face was a dead giveaway that he realized he was on the losing end of this fight. "God... damn... machine..." Ushio muttered, keeping his distance from Reia. "I should have ripped you apart a long time ago!" She gave him a sarcastic look of surprise and responded with a swift kick to his side. He fell over and curled up into a fetal position, kicking at Reia to keep her away.

"Reia, someone is here." She heard Kiku's voice from behind her. Reia turned around and Kiku was pointing towards the door. She started running when she saw Saburo bust through and head straight for her. He grabbed her and held on tight, repeatedly asking if she was okay. She nodded every time he asked.

"Did he hurt you?" Saburo asked.

Reia shook her head. "I am not hurt." she signed.

"Where is that son of a..."

She pointed towards the floor behind her.

Saburo took notice of Ushio, still lying on the ground. He looked back at Reia with puzzlement. "What happened?" he asked.

"I took care of it." she replied.

"Oh really?" Saburo rushed towards him with his fist drawn back, screaming out loud. Ushio put up his arms to block Saburo's attack and turned his face away from him, squinting his eyes shut. Saburo stopped only inches away from hitting him and smiled. "Good." he said. "Bother us again and she'll be the last of your worries!"

Saburo gestured towards the front door, "Wanna go home?" he asked. Reia smiled an nodded, following him out. Before leaving, she pulled Saburo aside.

"Translate for me."

Saburo nodded.

Reia walked up to Kiku and hugged her. She started signing to her and Saburo quickly translated.

"Don't let him hurt you anymore."

Kiku smiled and nodded. She hugged Reia once more and walked them to the door. She watched as they got in the car and drove off towards home. A streak of light ran across her eyes as she silently mouthed the words "Thank you". She turned around and looked up towards the other persocoms who had gathered back at the top of the stairs and smiled.

-- -- --

Reia and Saburo spent some time settling down, not saying much as they headed home.

"Do you think the others will be okay?" Saburo asked, breaking the silence.

Reia nodded, "I think things will change." she signed.

"I'm sure they will."

"Incoming call from my master!" Yukimi announced, jumping up onto the dashboard.

"Connect for me."

"Connecting now!" Yukimi's eyes went dim and Daisuke's voice replaced her own.

"Saburo?"

"Yeah, what's up?"

"Did you find Reia? Is she okay?"

"Yes and yes. We're on our way back now."

"Great! The police took care of Ila and everything's been cleaned up, so get yourself home."

"That's where I'm headed."

"We'll wait around until you get here."

"Sounds good."

Yukimi snapped back into reality, "Connection ended!" she said.

"Alright, Yukimi. Show us the way home."


	26. Someone Like Me, Part 1

**Author's Notes: Thanks again for all the great reviews and support! I know that you were expecting the next update to be the epilogue, but after the flood of requests and ideas for new chapters that came in I have decided to continue on with the story. The "official" story ended at chapter 24, so I guess you could call this the 2nd season O.o**

**Also I would like to take a second to point out that Saburo and Reia have made their first appearance in another fanfic. Ikarias' "Love and Life" to be more specific. He's a new writer, so give him some support!  
**

**Next up (wow, lots of stuff here!), Artision, another member has created a few rough sketches of the characters! After he's finished and is cool with showing off his work, you'll see what he's come up with.**

**Alright, without any more delays, the next chapter! (Eeek, another two parter!) Enjoy!**

**-- **

Ch.25 - Someone Like Me, Part 1

--

It was a normal weekday at Saburo's apartment. He was relaxing in his rolling chair, keyboard in his lap just banging away. He had the day off, so he made sure to take full advantage of it. Reia was of course laid back on the couch, deep into one of her games. She had a new stack fresh out of the used bin at the local game shop and was fast on the way to polishing them all off. With her love of video games, their collection grew from three titles to about thirty but at about 400 yen apiece, Saburo didn't have a problem letting her pick up three or four at a time.

Saburo was spending a bit of time catching up on his custom hardware message boards. Once Reia appeared in his life, he all but disappeared from them. Now that things had finally settled down, he decided to let everyone know he was still alive. That, and check up on what new goodies and projects he could build.

He would occasionally take a break from looking at project web pages and peek over the monitor to see how Reia was doing. Even though she was back home safe with him, he was worried Ushio's last stunt reopened some of the emotional wounds he worked so hard to help her overcome. Although he learned just how badly she beat him there was no doubt that what happened left her feeling extremely vulnerable.

'Damnit... why wasn't I there?' Saburo thought, dwelling on about things he ought not to. Almost losing Reia scared the hell out of him. Realizing how easy she was snatched away scared him even more. Almost immediately after bringing Reia back, he had the landlord change the locks on his apartment. His neighbors also offered to keep an eye out when he was at work, but neither did much to alleviate his fears.

An unexpected tap on his shoulder startled him, almost sending him and his chair tumbling backwards. He caught his breath (and his balance) then turned his attention up to Reia who was just as startled.

"Sorry." Saburo sighed.

Reia nodded. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, just caught me off guard."

Saburo sat up and straightened himself out. He gave Reia a quick kiss on the cheek and switched off his monitor. "Let's get out for a little bit. Wanna come with me to Makoto's?"

She smiled and nodded.

Saburo ripped the piece of paper he was writing on out of his notebook and stuffed it in his pocket. They both put their shoes on and headed downstairs to the main entrance. He stretched his arms out when he walked outside. "Summer's almost over, it's gonna start getting cooler." he said. "Soon enough everything will be buried in snow."

"I remember it was snowing when I was activated." Reia signed.

"Well, now you'll get a chance to play in it."

"Play in it?"

"You'll see." Saburo smiled.

As they continued towards downtown, Saburo's worries got the best of him. "Say, Reia..." he started. "Are you doing okay?"

Reia tipped her head.

"I mean... after what happened."

She nodded. "Yes. I took care of everything."

"I hope you're right."

-- -- --

"Hey, Makoto!" Saburo said, walking through the door of the shop. He immediately started chatting away, not noticing Reia's attention was focused on something else entirely. A young girl, six or seven years old, sitting against the wall of Makoto's shop much in the way Reia was when Saburo found her. The girl's eyes were red and puffed up, tears streaming down her cheeks. Reia peeked back inside the shop, seeing Saburo and Makoto busily sorting through piles of parts as usual. She walked up to the girl and kneeled in front of her, waving her hand when she made eye contact. The girl did little more than look at her. "Are you okay?" Reia silently mouthed, rubbing the girl's head. She closed her eyes and leaned into Reia's hand, sniffling and wiping her face.

Meanwhile, Saburo and Makoto were still deep into it, tearing through the boxes upon boxes of 'new' parts that just came through the shop. Saburo, so concentrated on his rummaging, didn't notice that Reia hadn't followed him inside. He assumed that she was behind him or walking up and down the aisles of shelves.

"Good grief! I don't think most of this stuff has seen the light of day since the early twenty-first century!" Saburo chuckled.

"No doubt!" Makoto replied as he pulled out a couple of hard drives, blowing the dust off of them. "Look at this! This one holds an INCREDIBLE 500 gigs of data!"

"My grandpappy told me about these things. Never though I'd actually see one." Saburo said, imitating an old cartoon clip he remembered as a child.

"Dottie and I surfed the internets over the telephone!" Makoto added in a creaky old voice.

The two of them erupted in laughter.

Amidst their joking, Saburo felt that familiar tap on his shoulder. He sat the drive down and turned around. "Oh, hey there!" He looked down and noticed the little girl clinging tightly to Reia's arm. Saburo did a quick double take and stared blankly at Reia and the child, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.

"Reia... ummm... is there something you want to tell me?"

She nodded.

"Am I to assume it has something to do with the little shadow you seemed to have picked up?"

"Can we walk her home?" Reia asked.

Saburo turned to Makoto, "A moment, please." He took Reia by the hand and pulled her over behind some shelves. The little girl followed quickly behind and clung back onto Reia's arm. "Wha... Reia... how did you end up with this child?" he asked, keeping his voice quiet.

"She was outside the shop. She's scared and only wants to go home."

"That doesn't answer..." Saburo took in a deep breath. He bent down to the girl's level, "Hi!" he said, smiling. The little girl backed away and grabbed on tighter to Reia's arm. "Where are your parents?"

Reia tapped Saburo on the shoulder again. "They are at work." she signed.

"Is this right?" he asked the child. She nodded.

"Is your home far from here?" The girl shook her head.

Saburo hung his head and sighed. "Alright. Just show us how to get there."

The girl smiled and pulled on Reia's arm, pulling her towards the store entrance. "I'll be back in a minute, Makoto." Saburo called out.

"I'll be here all day!" Makoto replied.

They step out of the shop, child in tow. "Okay, where we goin?" Saburo asked.

The girl pointed down the street and tugged Reia's arm. Saburo followed behind the two as the young girl led the way. A few blocks down, a few blocks over and into a small community he had only seen in passing is where they wound up. She brought them to a house near the end of one of the several streets that crisscrossed the entire division. Reia followed her up to the front steps while Saburo stayed behind, not wanting to look like he was forcibly trying to separate the two.

'I need to keep a better eye out on her.' Saburo thought to himself, staring off into nothingness. 'She could get into real trouble like this.'

Seconds later, he felt Reia take him by the arm and put a peck on his cheek. "All done." she signed.

"Sounds good. Let's get back, shall we?"

"Can I ask something?" Reia asked as they walked back.

"Of course!" he replied.

"It is about some of the things she told me."

"Hmm... alright." Saburo gave her an odd look.

"Here goes..."

-- -- --

A short while after Saburo and Reia left, a car pulled up into the driveway. An older man steps out of the driver's door and walks towards the trunk.

"Hey, Noriko! Are you here?" he calls out towards the back yard.

The little girl comes running and leaps into the man's arms. "Wow, we are energetic today! Did you have fun at school?"

"Daddy, guess what? I made a new friend today!"

"Oh really? Tell us about him!" a middle aged woman asked, stepping out of the passenger side.

"It's a she, mommy, and her name is Reia!"

"That's great, Noriko! What's she like?" her father asked.

"She's tall and cute and has black hair and purple eyes and she's just like me!"

"Just like you, eh?" her mother giggled.

"That's right!"

"Will your friend be joining us for dinner?"

"No. I don't think she eats, mommy."

"I see." Noriko's mother added. "Okay, go back to playing. I'll let you know when dinner is ready."

"Okay!" Noriko ran off towards the back yard again. Her parents gathered the groceries out of the car and dropped them off inside on the kitchen counter.

"She's got a heck of an imagination!" her father started.

"Most kids that age do."

"I know dear, but I hope she's making some real friends. It must be hard for her."

"Well for now let her have her fun."


	27. Someone Like Me, Part 2

**Author's Notes: I can hear each and every one of you right now... it sounds like one loud voice shouting "It's about time!" Yes, I have let the story slip a bit, but for some odd reason this chapter was one of the most difficult to write. Don't ask, I don't even know myself. Anyway, I hope everyone likes the ending to this two-parter, I did my best to make it come out the way I wanted.**

**I'm already hot on the next chapter, so here's to quick updates and no writer's block!**

**Enjoy! **

Ch.27 - Someone Like Me, Part 2

--

"Very nice." Reia signed. The little girl smiled, holding the drawing she had just finished. She sat the paper down on the floor between them and pointed to each of the people she drew.

"This one is me, this one is you and this one is your boyfriend!"

Reia smiled as Noriko made reference to the one that bore a striking resemblance to Saburo.

"Noriko! We're home!" A female voice rang out as the front door opened. "How was your day swee--" The woman froze in place upon seeing Reia. Behind her, an older man walked in, puzzled by her expression.

"What's wrong?" he asked, turning to see what she was staring at. He took notice of Reia and jumped back. "Noriko! Come here! Come here now!" he said in a very tense voice.

Noriko quickly noticed Reia's fright and stood up with a big smile on her face and jumped into her arms, hugging her tightly. She then ran over to her parents and looked up at them with the same wide smile.

"Mommy! Daddy! This is Reia!"

**_About a week earlier..._**

"Ah, you're back!" Makoto announced, sticking his head over the counter. He tossed a few optical drives on the counter and ducked back down. "You might want to snag one of these before the other guys find them." he added. Saburo walked over, picked up one of the drives and gave it a good looking over. Reia came up beside him and picked up the other drive. She imitated Saburo by looking the drive over, reading labels and checking the cable headers.

"HoloROM drives?" Saburo asked, wide eyed.

"Not just drives, they're burners. 5.6 terabytes per disc." Makoto replied.

Saburo grinned from ear to ear, "You're gonna cut me a deal on one of these, right?"

Reia sat the drive she had back on the counter and pointed to one of the connectors on the drive Saburo was clutching onto rather tightly. "SATA-DC?" she signed.

"Very good! You have been learning!" he smiled. "Now, tricky one. Dual channel with sidebands, or without?"

She counted the pins on the connector and a quick streak of light illuminated her eyes. "With." she replied.

Saburo put his arm around her and kissed her on the cheek. "Teaching her the ropes?" Makoto asked as he reappeared from behind the counter. He opened up a brown box and pulled out a bunch of components, lining them up on the counter. "I've got the controllers for that thing, along with, look at this, five unopened blanks." He sat the media alongside the other parts he had pulled out, "I'm sure this would fetch at least a little bit. Darrell and his guys would snap up these little gems even if I charged them a stupid amount."

"To hell with those script jockeys! How much?"

"How's 33,000 sound?"

"Makoto..."

"Fine, fine. 26,000."

"For twenty-eight terabytes? C'mon, I'll do 24,000. I have to pay the electric bill so I can run that thing."

"Saburo..." Makoto said in a low tone. "You're killing me here. 24,000 but only four discs."

"Deal." Saburo swiped his card across the reader and Makoto rang him up. He turned around to Reia with an excited grin, "New toy! New toy!"

"Yeah yeah, now get outta here before you drive me out of business!" Makoto chuckled.

The rest of the evening was spent with Saburo under his desk, stuffing his new drive into one of his computers. Reia watched on although her attention was far from what he was doing. She thought back to that little girl, helpless and alone, tormented by other kids for fun. It brought back memories buried deep within her, thing she still hadn't told Saburo. The more those memories flooded her, the more she felt a desire to help. She saw so many similarities between Noriko and herself that it was impossible to point out just one as the reason for her feelings.

"And that should do it!" Saburo said as he climbed into his chair and smacked the power button, bringing the computer back to life. "Now all we need to do is check that the OS recognizes it and we'll--"

Reia was staring blankly at the wall behind him, small streaks of light occasionally shot across her eyes.

"Reia? Are you with me?" he asked. She didn't respond. Saburo put his hand on her leg and inched closer to her. "Hey..." he whispered as he took hold of her hand. Reia snapped out of her trance and turned her attention to him. "Reia, is everything okay?" Saburo asked, a bit of concern in his voice. She paused for a moment, then responded with a drawn out nod.

"Why did you bring me home?" Reia signed,

"Why... what?" Saburo asked, becoming more and more confused.

"When you found me, why did you take me with you?"

Saburo slouched down in his chair and slowly rocked back and forth. "Well, the scrap heap didn't sound too appealing and it was apparent I was the only one that considered taking you in. Why do you ask?"

"I just wanted to know."

"Fair enough. I'm rather glad I did, too." he said, leaning forward to steal a quick kiss.

-- -- --

The next day, Reia set out towards Noriko's school. Saburo was still at work, which gave her a little bit of time to meet Noriko and get back home before he noticed. Once she arrived, Reia waited under the large oak tree Noriko told her about the day before.

_"Can you walk me home tomorrow?" the little girl signed._

_"I am not sure. I will try, though." Reia replied._

_"If you can, wait for me around 3 o'clock under the big tree in front of the school doors."_

Shortly afterwards the front doors of the school swung open and a flood of children poured out into the schoolyard. Reia peered into the tiny crowds, searching for Noriko. While she was busy looking about, a pair of small arms wrapped themselves around her legs, almost knocking her down. Reia put her hand on the tree to maintain her balance, then looked down at the child that had clamped down upon her.

"You made it!" Noriko signed after she let go of Reia.

Reia nodded, "I have a little bit of time."

Noriko hugged Reia around the legs again and smiled. "Let's go this way." She signed and took hold of Reia's hand, leading her back towards the street.

"I got perfect marks on my test today!" Noriko smiled.

"Very good." Reia replied. "What class was this--"

Reia was cut off when a big rubber ball zipped by and smacked Noriko on the head with a loud, hollow thwack. Noriko fell to the ground and put her hands over her face. Reia quickly kneeled down and sat her up, brushing the dirt from her hair.

"Hey, you hit the mute girl! Ten points!"

Reia immediately turned her head towards the voice. Three young boys, a few years older, were pointing towards her and Noriko, laughing. She stared the kids down, a quick streak of light dashed across her eyes. She then turned her attention back to Noriko as the boys continued to make fun of her and dusted off her dress and backpack.

Noriko wiped the tears from her eyes, "They... hurt me... all the time."

"Hey, persocom! Give us our ball!" one of the kids shouted.

"Watch this." Reia told Noriko with a mischievous look on her face.

She picked up the ball and pointed to it. "What other ball is there, ya stupid com?" the boy yelled. Reia smiled innocently, then reeled back and threw the ball towards them, putting a bit of that persocom strength behind it. The ball curved slightly towards the ground and knocked one of the kid's legs clean out from under him. He hit the ground face first, leaving his friends and most of the other children around them staring in awe.

"I'm telling!" the boy squealed as tears poured down his cheeks. He ran off towards the school with his friends quickly behind him.

"Ten points." Reia signed. Noriko smiled and latched back onto her leg.

The other children in the schoolyard stared blankly at the two as they left the school grounds, keeping a bit of distance from them. Noriko tugged Reia the opposite direction down the street that led to her house. She pulled out a handful of coins from her pocket, held them out to Reia then quickly stuffed them back inside.

"Ice cream!" she signed.

-- -- --

Reia sat on a park bench next to Noriko who was busy putting away a huge waffle cone piled high with chocolate ice cream. She would occasionally clean Noriko's face in between mouthfulls, a task that proved to be ultimately futile, as she would make a mess just as quick as Reia could clean it.

"How long until you have to go home?" Noriko signed, using one hand to spell out the words while the other was busy handling her treat.

"One hour, thirty-seven minutes." Reia replied.

"Lots of time, let's go to my place!" Noriko polished off the last of her ice cream and cleaned her hands with a pile of napkins. She tossed the chocolate covered wad in the trash and gestured for Reia to follow her. She followed behind Noriko back to the house she walked her to when they first met. Noriko entered a code on a small keypad and the door's lock popped open. She ran inside and up a set of stairs, waving her hands for Reia to come up with her.

"This is my room." she signed, then opened one of the doors at the top of the steps.

Noriko's bedroom was filled almost end to end with all sorts of stuffed animals and dolls. A couple of bookshelves with children's books and a small bed with a pair of nightstands were the only other things that really stood out. Noriko jumped on her bed and grabbed one of the big plush animals sitting on her pillow.

"This one is my favorite! I love stuffed animals!" Noriko signed then held her plushie out in front of Reia.

"It is very pretty" Reia replied.

"Is there anything you like?"

"I like playing games."

Noriko lit up and leapt off of her bed. "I have a game we can play!" she signed and ran out of her room. A few moments later she returned with a stack of board games. "My mommy and daddy play these games with me, they're lots of fun." She opened one of the boxes and pulled out all the pieces, laying them on the floor. Reia sat down next to her and picked up the instruction sheet for the game. A few seconds of quick reading and she was ready to play.

"Roll to see who goes first." Noriko said, holding a die out to Reia.

Reia found herself rather surprised, losing five out of the six games they played. Even when she put forth a concentrated effort to win, Noriko would come out on top. In the middle of their seventh game however, Reia's internal clock reminded her that she had twenty minutes before Saburo got off of work.

"It's time for me to go." Reia signed.

Noriko nodded and gave Reia a hug. "Will you come by again tomorrow?"

"Yes." she replied.

Reia met Noriko after school every day that week. They spent all the time they could together playing, walking around the stores downtown and enjoying the occasional frozen treat. The other kids at school stopped teasing her after hearing stories about 'that mean persocom Noriko bought'. Reia always made it back home in time to sneak under Saburo's radar and keep her meetings a secret.

Until Noriko's parents came home early...

-- -- --

"I'm home!" Saburo announced. He closed the door behind him and tossed his shoes to the side. "Today was a mess! Half of our shipments arrived late and it was rush, rush, rush all... evening... long... huh?" He looked around and instantly realized that Reia wasn't there. Saburo ran into the kitchen and bathroom, checking the only two places of his tiny apartment he couldn't see from the front door.

'No, please, not again!' he thought. His hands shook as he rushed around the apartment. He stopped and noticed that the voicemail light on his phone was flashing. Saburo quickly picked up the handset and checked his messages.

"Mister Irutaya Saburo... My name is Kimura Nami. Your persocom is currently at our home. No need to worry, she is perfectly fine. If you wouldn't mind coming by, our address is--"

Saburo pressed the button to repeat the message then grabbed his notepad off his desk and scribbled down the address. He yanked out the sheet he wrote on and tossed the notebook on the bed, stuffing the loose piece of paper into his pocket. He then stuffed his feet back into his shoes and rushed out towards the address he was given. Oddly enough, it sounded vaguely familiar but he couldn't put his finger on it. Once he arrived however, he had a pretty good idea of what was waiting behind the door of that house.

'Reia... what have you gotten yourself into now?'

Saburo let out a deep sigh and pressed the doorbell. A few seconds later the door opened and behind it was an older man, early fifties, with a slightly discontent look on his face. He pulled the door open further and held his hand outstretched, gesturing for Saburo to enter.

"I apologize for any trouble she might have caused." Saburo started out.

The man held up his hand in front of Saburo, silencing him. "Sit down." he said in a rather terse response. Saburo quickly nodded and took a seat in one of the recliners spread about the room.

"Nami, he's here." the older man called out towards the other end of the house. He then took a seat on a small couch facing Saburo. Shortly after that, a woman walked in holding several sheets of paper in her hands. She sat down next to him and cleared her throat.

"Where do we start?" she began. "I guess introductions are best. My name is Kimura Nami and this is my husband, Kiyoshi."

"Pleased to meet you. I'm Irutaya Saburo." Saburo replied.

Nami nodded. "I'm sure you're just as confused over this whole situation as we are. Apparently our daughter and your persocom have been seeing each other for the past week. The only way we found out about it was when we came home early today."

"The only way I found out was the voicemail I received today." Saburo said.

"Tell us, how did your persocom meet our daughter?" asked Kiyoshi in a very stern tone.

"She was outside an electronics shop I hang out at often. My persocom approached me with her, saying that she wanted to be walked home. That's all we did, just walked her home and went on about our business."

"Seems it went a bit further than that, doesn't it?" Kiyoshi muttered.

"Oh would you quit, Kiyoshi!" Nami snapped. "I'm sorry, Saburo. Please continue."

"That's all I know." Saburo continued nervously.

"Her name is Reia, correct?"

Saburo nodded. "That's right."

Nami sat up and handed Saburo the papers that she was holding onto. He took a few seconds and flipped through them. They were a child's crayon drawings. Saburo immediately recognized both the young girl and Reia in each of them. Most of the drawings showed the two playing while some were simply the two of them with their names. One of them even had a drawing of him. Saburo couldn't help but chuckle as he looked at each of them.

"We thought Reia was one of her imaginary friends." Kiyoshi said, finally easing up. "Is it true that she doesn't talk?"

"She can't. She suffered internal damage when she was with her first owner and I haven't found a way to fix her."

"It would explain why they were hanging out." Nami added. "Our daughter, Noriko, was born mute."

Upon hearing that, all the little pieces inside Saburo's mind about what was going on and why immediately fell into place. "I understand now..." he quietly said, his feelings about the situation taking a turn.

"Saburo, would you come with us for a moment?" Kiyoshi asked.

Saburo nodded and followed Nami and Kiyoshi to the other end of their home. Nami pointed towards a set of glass double doors that led out to the backyard. He walked closer and looked outside. Their backyard resembled a child's playground... swings, slides, two jungle gyms and a large sandbox next to an in ground pool. He then noticed the little girl dart across the yard with Reia not too far behind. The two chased each other and tumbled in the grass then went back to running around after one another.

"This is the first time she's had a playmate. As you could guess, making friends is difficult for her." Nami said.

"School probably isn't much fun, either." commented Saburo.

Kiyoshi nodded. "We know she receives more... unwanted attention... from her classmates than the other kids."

"It's the same with all of the groups and clubs we tried enrolling her into." said Nami. "That's why we had this play area built for her... so that she could have somewhere to have fun without all the torment."

"Saburo..." Kiyoshi interjected, "I know that we met under rather, shall we say, interesting circumstances. However, we would like to ask you something."

"Please, feel free." Saburo replied.

"Nami and I discussed this while waiting for you to arrive. Would you allow Reia to continue what she's doing? We normally come home rather late from work, and it would be a great help if she could walk her home from school and watch over her until we arrived. We would pay, of course."

"We just don't think it would be right to separate them." said Nami.

Saburo nodded and smiled. "Well, this sure turned out differently than I expected. I agree, those two look like little peas in a pod out there and keeping them away from each other would be bad, especially for Noriko. I'm for it, but I'm not the one you should be asking."

"Very true." Kiyoshi said. He then opened the doors to the backyard. "Noriko! Come inside for a moment, sweetheart!"

Saburo poked his head around the door, "Reia, you too!" he said.

The two stopped and looked at the back door, noticing both Saburo and Kiyoshi. Noriko quickly ran up the steps and inside to her father, while Reia followed slowly behind. Saburo could see that Reia was a bit uneasy and worried. He made eye contact with her and smiled. "It's alright." he signed. Reia nodded nervously and walked inside.

Kiyoshi kneeled down on the floor, eye level with his daughter. "Noriko, do you want Reia to keep meeting you after school?" he asked. "She would walk you home and take care of you until we got off of work." Noriko immediately lit up and hugged her father tightly. "Hahahaha..." Kiyoshi laughed, "I guess that's a yes, then." Noriko nodded, still clinging tightly around Kiyoshi's neck.

"Are you cool with that?" Saburo asked, turning to Reia. "It's a big responsibility."

Reia nodded, "I will do my best." she signed.

"Alright. We'll get a set of keys to the apartment cut for you tonight so that you'll be able to come and go freely." replied Saburo.

"It looks like that's settled." Kiyoshi announced. "Would you mind staying for dinner tonight? We can discuss all the little details and laugh about this whole thing over a good meal."

"Sounds better than another ramen dinner!" Saburo said.

-- -- --

Saburo and Reia finally make it back home late in the evening, his stomach full of some of the best cooking he's had in a very long time. "Never a dull moment with you around." he told Reia. He then pulled out a pair of keys from his pocket and held them out in front of her. "The square one is the top lock, the other funky shaped one is the bottom lock. Always lock both when nobody's going to be here."

Reia's eyes illuminated as several flashes of light streaked across them. She nodded to him and signed, "I understand."

"Now, before I hand you these..." he continued, "I want to know something. Why didn't you tell me about this?"

"I didn't want you to be angry." she replied.

Saburo let out a long sigh and plopped down on the bed. "I'm not too happy that you kept it from me. I came home and was scared out of my mind that Ushio tried to pull the same trick again. You really had me worried for a bit."

Reia stared down at the floor, an expression of sadness crept over her face. "I only wanted to help."

"I know. I understand that."

"Are you upset?" Reia asked.

"Naah." Saburo shook his head. "I know why you did it and I'm rather proud of you. In the end something good came out of all of this and that's what really matters. Just let me know what's going on next time."

Reia nodded and sat down next to him on the bed. "I do have one request to make." she signed.

"Go for it." Saburo replied.

"Don't worry about fixing me."

Saburo cocked one of his eyebrows, "Repeat that." he said, believing he misinterpreted her signs.

"Don't worry about fixing me." she repeated. "I'm not alone. I found someone who is like me, someone who understands me. I don't feel... broken anymore."

Saburo smiled and pulled Reia close to him. "Sure thing." he said. Everything that happened showed him that she had finally broken away from the fear and isolation put upon her by her original owner. It made all of the worries he had about her fade away.

"Children are a lot of fun. Do you think we can get one someday?" Reia asked.

Well, maybe not all of them.


	28. Family Ties

**Authors Notes: Yes, I am still alive. This one took MUCH longer to write than I had expected. I don't think it was writer's block as it was writer's ten-mile wall. I'm still not entirely satisfied with this chapter, however that will probably change when the rest of this misadventure is written. Am I the only one that has those worries?**

**Well, bringing 'Broken' back to the top of the fic pile... chapter 27. Enjoy!**

Ch.27 - Family Ties

--

Reia opened the door and walked into the apartment after getting back from Noriko's. She knocked on the wall, her way of announcing herself. Saburo was pacing across the apartment, chatting away on the telephone. He waved to Reia and blew her a kiss in between his phone conversation.

"Well congrats, sis! You're lucky as hell that a company is picking you up fresh out of college. This weekend? Of course I'll be there! Is Kazuo coming? Hell... Alright, we'll deal with that when the time comes. Anyway, I've gotta run... I'll hit the first train out there tomorrow. Okay? Love you too!"

Saburo pressed the 'end' button and tossed the phone on the bed. He then ran up to Reia and gave her a nice kiss. "A proper greeting!" he said. "That was my sister. She's finally graduating from college and her ceremony is this weekend."

Reia tipped her head. "Sister?" she signed.

"That's right, I never told you about them... never even thought about it. Wow... alright, where to start?" Saburo rambled on as he let himself fall back onto the couch. Reia sat down beside him, curious about her newest discovery. "There are three of us, I'm the middle sib. Sumiko's the youngest, she's who I was on the phone with. Kazuo's our big brother, he's got three years on me. Sumiko gets along with him rather well. I, on the other hand, do not."

"Why?"

"We have our differences, let's keep it at that." replied Saburo.

Reia nodded in response.

"Then there's my mom. She's, for lack of better words, my mom. You'll just have to wait until you meet her to understand."

"I will be meeting them?" she asked.

Saburo nodded slowly, "That's the plan. You didn't think I'd just leave you here, did you?"

Reia lit up with a smile. "I will come with you." she signed.

-- -- --

The next day saw Saburo and Reia rushing to make their train after some horrible traffic set them back almost a half an hour. They arrived and slipped through the train's doors only a few seconds before it started to speed down the tracks. Saburo found his seat and threw himself down on it, taking a few seconds to catch his breath. Reia took the bags and put them in the overhead before sitting down next to him.

"Whew... I'm not... as fit... as I used to be." Saburo panted.

A chime played on the loudspeakers in the car, followed by an automated message. "Welcome. All transit stops are currently running on time today. Arrival times are as follows: Fukushima... thirty-two minutes, Yamagata... Fifty-eight minutes, Akita... One hour, forty-six minutes. Final stop in Aomori in two hours, twenty-seven minutes. We hope you enjoy your trip today." The message then repeated itself.

"Well, we've got about a two hour trip ahead of us, so I'll go ahead and tell you a bit more about my family." Saburo said. "We Irutayas are a bit of a bag of mixed nuts." he laughed.

Reia nodded and focused her attention squarely on Saburo.

"Sumiko's a hyperactive tomboy. She's been wound up 24/7 since she was born. A lot of stuff is miswired upstairs that keeps her bouncing off the walls. She comes off as extremely clumsy most of the time, but that's because her brain says 'do' before it says 'think'. Once ya get her calmed down though, she's pretty solid. She just finished college, majored in chemistry. A research group near where she lives offered her a position a couple of weeks before she finished her last classes."

"Miswired?" asked Reia.

"Let her explain it for you." Saburo replied. "Next there's Kazuo. I don't keep up with him much. I know he's still alive, I still don't like him, he still doesn't like me. Aside from that, he runs his own company selling some product or something... I don't know. Like I said, I don't keep up with him. Fortunately he isn't coming in until tomorrow, so it'll be peaceful until then. Now, mom is a bit rough around the edges. She can be extremely direct and has no issues with voicing her opinion, regardless of what it is. Her age doesn't help that one bit either. She's a good person, so don't judge her by her disposition alone."

Reia nodded.

"Also, until I find a miracle way to break it to the family, let's keep 'us' between us. Behind closed doors or when we're alone is fine, but otherwise keep it on the down low. There's no telling how mom and Sumi will react to it, and the last thing you and I need is to give Kazuo more ammo... I can only imagine what he'll say." Saburo added.

"I understand." she signed.

"Don't worry though, my old bed is big enough for the both of us and the door should still have a lock. I won't condemn you to spending the night in a corner."

"Will that be a problem?"

"Not at all." Saburo said in a reassuring tone. "Oh, one more thing." He continued, pulling out her PDA, "I installed a few new games on here, it isn't the console we have at home but it should provide you with your gaming fix for the weekend."

Reia smiled and immediately started tapping around with the stylus. She found one of the games and quickly started playing. Saburo snuck a quick kiss on her cheek before curling up across a couple of seats, using his jacket for a pillow. "I'm going to snag a quick nap. Wake me up if you need anything, okay?"

Reia made a quick nod as she continued her tapping frenzy.

Saburo didn't get much sleep, the train's abrupt stopping at each station threatened to throw him off of the seats. Once they arrived in Akita, Saburo searched for a cab to take them the rest of the way. He managed to flag one down and gave the driver the address to his parents' house. After a bit of chatting on how to get there, he tossed the bags in the trunk and slid in the back seat with Reia.

The trip by taxi only took a few minutes, much better than walking several miles in the cold. The driver pulled into a large subdivision and made several turns through the rural streets. He finally came to a stop after turning around at a dead end and pulling up to the curb.

"Is this it?" the driver asked.

"Yup. This is perfect." replied Saburo. He opened the door and slid out, then held his hand out to Reia for her to follow. "Here we are!" he said, running around to the back of the taxi to grab their bags. "A whole lot bigger than my apartment, isn't it?" He paid the driver and walked up alongside Reia. "Let's go!"

They headed up the cobblestone driveway to the front door. Saburo sat the bags down and rang the doorbell, which was immediately followed by a barrage of high pitched barking. Reia quickly jumped back, having never heard that sound before.

Saburo couldn't help but chuckle a little bit. "Don't worry... that's just Poof, my mom's miniature something-or-other." he said. "She won't bite."

Reia looked over at Saburo in puzzlement. "A what?" she signed.

"A very small dog." he replied.

Saburo heard the deadbolt unlock on the door and he reached down to pick up the bags. To his surprise, he was greeted at the door by a rather short and petite persocom.

"Good evening. This is the Irutaya residence, how many I help you?" she asked.

"Wow mom, you're looking pretty good for your age!" Saburo replied. The persocom gave him a confused look as a streak of light flashed across her eyes. "This is the Irutaya res--"

"It's okay, Yasu. That's just my smart-ass son. Please, let him in." an older voice chimed in.

"Hi, mom!" Saburo said, peering around the door.

"Would you get in here? You're letting all the heat out!"

Saburo quickly shot inside and gestured for Reia to follow. Once she was inside, he closed the door and sat his bags aside. He tossed his shoes beside the door and walked up to give his mother a hug. Meanwhile, Reia tiptoed around the living room as Poof circled her feet and jumped up at her, barking the entire time.

"Poof, get over here!" Saburo came to the rescue and picked up the tiny dog. Poof quickly changed his tune once in Saburo's arms, wagging his tail and licking Saburo's face all over. "Yes, yes... I love you too, ya fuzzball. Now leave Reia alone, I'm sure she's fully capable of punting you across the planet." He sat Poof down on the floor and the instant his hands let go, Poof was back to jumping and barking at Reia.

"Mom... help please."

She picked the dog up and put him in the kitchen. "Go on, leave them alone." She said. Poof quickly scurried away and ran up the stairs, looking back and growling every few seconds. As the dog ran up, a series of loud footsteps pounded back down the other direction.

"Saburo!!!" a bubbly, high pitched voice squealed.

"And here comes Sumiko."

Sumiko came running full tilt through the kitchen, a sprint that turned into a fight to stay standing when she was reminded of the reasons not to wear fuzzy socks on a newly waxed hardwood floor. She stumbled across the floor into the living room, losing her balance once slick wood turned into carpet. Saburo, almost out of reflex, held out his arm and caught her with little effort.

"Seems someone hasn't changed." Saburo snickered.

At about the same height, with the same green eyes and mismanaged hair, there was no doubt Sumiko and Saburo were closely related. Her attire also mirrored his, a pair of old jeans and a shirt from a high school rally years ago. Her hair was a bit lighter than Saburo's and kept in a loose ponytail.

Sumiko regained her footing and wrapped her brother into a hug. "I haven't seen you in so long!" She playfully punched him in the shoulder, "Someone keeps forgetting to stay in touch..."

"Owww! Ya don't have to be so rough. Sorry, work's been busy and the like."

"Looks to me like you're busy with new toys." Sumiko replied, peering over at Reia.

"Ah, that does remind me. Sumi, mom, this is Reia." Saburo held his hand out and Reia slowly walked over. She smiled and waved to Saburo's sister and mother.

Sumiko gave Reia a good looking over, "Well she looks nice." she said. "And those earrings are sooooo cute!" Sumiko pointed over to Yasu who had been observing the last ten minutes of madness in sheer confusion, "That's mom's new 'com, Yasu. She's actually pretty cool, you'd definitely dig her." she added.

Reia quickly tipped her head as a single streak of light flashed across her eyes.

"Finally decided to get a persocom?"

"You know... since your father's not around, I needed a bit of extra help around the house. Mostly simple things like cleaning, feeding Poof and making sure I take my medication on time. I don't plan on remarrying, so a persocom was the best choice." his mother replied.

Saburo studied Yasu a little closer. She was shorter than most persocoms he had seen before. She also did not have the telltale ears, rather she had a ring that wrapped around her forehead like a headband. Her hair was dark brown and her eyes were a pale yellow which matched the color of her ring and outfit.

"So tell me about yourself, Yasu."

"Certainly." she replied. "I am an Alpha 9RX model persocom, dubbed the Angelic series, developed by ThetaLabs Research Industries, serial number 9RX09882813. My processor is a TRI Divine 2 clocked at 733GHz. Memory capacities are as follows: 2.3 terabytes of nano-holographic RAM, 600 terabyte molecular static ferrofluid data storage. I am equipped with both multi-wavelength fiber optic ports for high speed data transfer and 1394-R ports for connection to peripheral devices. My activation date was June 11, 2208."

Saburo let out a long, drawn out whistle. "Cutting edge, indeed. Most of those technologies were just released to consumers this year!"

Reia stared at Saburo and Yasu with a look that was not pleasing at all.

"I told the guy at the shop to give me the best model they had, I wanted one that would last." Mrs. Irutaya said.

"She probably cost you a fortune!"

"Money well spent. Now, why are we all standing around?! Come on, there's plenty of room to sit down!" Saburo's mom shooed everyone over to the center of the living room. "Yasu, can you bring us some drinks?"

"Yes ma'am." Yasu replied. "What would you like?"

"Sumiko and I will have some tea, and bring my son one of those drinks you picked up earlier."

"Yes ma'am."

"No, I didn't forget... I had Yasu track down some of those over caffeinated energy drinks you used to like." Mrs. Irutaya added.

A mischievous smile appeared on Saburo's face. "Woohoo, Ultra Warp! I'm not sleeping tonight!"

"Can I have one? Can I? Can I?" Sumiko chanted.

"How about not." replied Saburo. "You're more hyper now than I was as a child, there's no telling what that stuff will do to you."

Sumiko pouted as she sunk into the chair behind her. Saburo plopped on the couch in his usual manner and patted the cushion beside him for Reia to sit. She quickly sat down then flipped open her PDA and continued on the games that Saburo downloaded for her.

"So how's Daisuke doing?" asked Sumiko.

"Pretty good, actually. He's almost through with school. What time he doesn't spend there he's spending with his girlfriend." Saburo replied.

"Girl-- wha?! He has a girlfriend?!"

Saburo nodded. "Hit it off big time with a girl at his school."

"Will wonders never cease! How about you, got a lady in your life?"

Saburo stuttered while figuring out the best way to answer. "Well... actually I do."

"Oh really? It's about time! What's she like?"

"She's... ummm... she's the quiet type."

"Is that it? Details!" Sumiko replied.

"Don't worry, I'll make sure to introduce you two. I'm positive you two will get along."

Yasu returned carrying a small tray with two glasses of tea and a frosted can. She handed the glasses to Sumiko and her mother, then sat the can down on the coffee table in front of Saburo. She took a couple of steps back, "Is everything to your liking?" she asked.

"Just fine." Mrs. Irutaya replied.

"Thank ya much!" Saburo said, cracking the top of the can. He chugged a good half of the drink in one swoop and sat it back down on the table. "Haven't changed a bit!" He looked back up at Yasu who had not moved an inch, "Kick back, Yasu... no need to stand around all the time." She smiled at Saburo and sat down beside him.

Reia's eyes shifted towards Yasu. She would occasionally glance towards the other persocom while playing her game, trying not to gather Saburo's attention.

"Do you wish to know more about my specifications?" asked Yasu.

"Well, actually I was wondering where your ports were. You don't seem to have ears."

"Ears?" Yasu replied. "I do have ears." She flipped her hair back to reveal human-like ears. "I am the first Thetalabs persocom to have 'natural' ears. My communications ports are located in my halo." Yasu touched the left side of the ring around her head and a small door slid back revealing all of the ports and zip-cables a persocom is normally equipped with.

"Fancy!" Saburo said, taking a chug of his soda. "Angelic... Divine processor... the halo... I get it." he chuckled.

A slight creaking of plastic was heard as Reia's grip on her PDA tightened.

Saburo quickly turned his attention to Reia. "Whoa, I know I picked some hard ones, but there's no need to kill the PDA." he chuckled. "Let's take a look at what you're having trouble with." Saburo downed the last of his drink, shaking it a bit to get the last few drops out. He stared into the can with one eye for a moment. "There goes another one!" he announced, sitting the soda can on the table.

"I can take that for you." Yasu said and reached for the empty can on the table. Before she had a chance, Reia quickly turned off her PDA and snapped it up. Both Saburo and Yasu jumped back slightly at Reia's unexpected actions. She smiled at Saburo while she headed towards the kitchen, a smile that disappeared instantly as she gave Yasu a glaring look on her way back.

Saburo quickly took notice of this. "Hey, I'm going to check out my old room, see if I can find some stuff I've been meaning to pick up."

"That's fine. Lunch will be ready shortly." his mother replied. "But don't you dare make a mess up there!"

"I won't, mom." Saburo got up and headed towards the kitchen. He looked at Reia for a couple of moments in order to get her attention. "Follow me." he signed very subtly after her eyes locked onto him.

Reia followed behind him through the kitchen and up the stairs leading to the rest of the house. The upstairs hallway was rather narrow with doors on each side and one at the very end. Saburo opened the door on the far right and flipped the light switch. "This is it." he said. "The four walls I grew up in."

His old room was very similar to his apartment. A small bed with a pair of desks butted together across from it. Posters for old computer products were taped to the walls and a yellowing terminal sat in one corner. Everything was neat and free of dust, looking as it had been cleaned recently. Piles of old electronics were under the desks, leaving just enough room for a chair to roll neatly underneath.

Saburo closed the door and sat down on the bed. "You're acting kind of odd, Reia. Is there something wrong?"

"All of my systems are functioning normally." she signed.

Saburo let out a sigh, "That's not what I meant. You've been... I dunno... weird since we got here. You almost crunched your PDA in your hands, and that look you shot Yasu... I thought you were going to rip her apart!"

"I don't like her." replied Reia.

Saburo raised an eyebrow. "Yasu? Why?"

"I don't know what it is. Every time she gets close to you or gets your undivided attention, I feel... afraid, yet also mad. It's not at you, it's at her."

Saburo thought about the situation for a moment. "Waitaminit... are you jealous?"

"What is jealous?" Reia asked.

Saburo stood up and rifled through one of his desks. He pulled out an old, beat up dictionary and flipped through it. "Here." he said, turning the book towards her, his finger pointing to the definition. Reia glanced at it and a couple of light streaks shot across her eyes. She handed the dictionary back to Saburo and nodded slowly.

"You should have told me if it was bothering you."

"I was keeping us between us like you requested."

"Things like that you can tell me about. Besides, Mom and Sumi don't know sign. At least I don't think they do..."

Reia nodded. "I just don't want you to like her more than me."

"There's no need for you to feel jealous of Yasu. I'm just in my 'check out the cool technology' mode that turns me into a zombie at the sight of blinking lights and wires, that's all. You have nothing to worry about." he reassured her. "Yasu's a slick com, but she isn't you." Saburo wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her down with him onto the bed. Reia smiled as Saburo put a big kiss on her cheek and pulled her close. "Why don't you try to get to know her... that might ease your worries."

"Saburo!!! Lunch!!!" Sumiko shouted from the bottom of the stairs.

"Good lord, do you have to be so loud?" Mrs. Irutaya said. "Just go up there and get him!"

Saburo quickly jumped up off the bed. "And here's your chance." he smiled.


	29. Old Friends

**Author's notes: Wow, been a while, hasn't it! The past eleven months have been interesting to say the least. Lots of changes, lots of things going on. However I still managed to write a bit here and there. I plan on finishing the story, regardless of how long it takes  
**

** Sorry this took so long to finish... I hope it's been worth the wait! Enjoy!**

Ch.28 - Old Friends

--

Both siblings sat back at the table after eating a nice meal. Saburo and Sumiko sat across each other, with Reia sitting at one of the other corners. Yasu and Mrs. Irutaya walked back and forth through the kitchen, cooking everything needed for the celebrations tomorrow. Poof was of course circling the table, hoping for a few tidbits to drop down.

"Whew, I'm stuffed!" Saburo said as he gave his chopsticks a quick twirl and sat them down. "That was great!"

"Yeah, Yasu learned to cook fast." Sumiko added in.

"Not bad. She did a good job."

"The recipes are easy to reproduce, though sometimes I have trouble with Mrs. Irutaya's approximations." replied Yasu.

"Ah, you mean 'glug, glug, about that much'... yeah, Mom is famous for that. Her skill cannot be taught. It must be discovered." Saburo said jokingly.

Yasu gave Saburo a confused look. "I do not understand."

"You will learn it soon enough. Just give it time."

"I will do my best." Yasu replied with a smile and a bow.

After a few moments, Reia took it upon herself to help out. She zipped back and forth, clearing the table and putting away the leftovers as she collected and cleaned the dishes. Saburo watched her scoot around with a hint of surprise in his expression. "You okay with doing that?" he asked. She simply smiled an nodded, pointing to her ears as she slipped between Yasu and Saburo's mother on her way to the sink.

"Cool enough." Saburo shrugged his shoulders.

"So tell me more about Dai's new lady." Sumiko started in.

"Oh, Leiko? She's a little firecracker. Daisuke might have met his match with her." he laughed. Saburo held out his hand, referencing Leiko's height. "Short little thing with glasses. She knows how to party, I'll give her that."

"You think he'll keep ahold of her?" Sumiko questioned.

"Will they stick together? Oh yeah, I'm sure. Can he keep up with that kind of lifestyle? Naah, not even slightly. Won't stop him from trying."

"Alright, you can gossip about your friends elsewhere." Mrs. Irutaya said. "I need to finish cooking for tomorrow, so out!" Saburo and Sumiko quickly stood up and got out of their mother's way. Seeing Saburo's hasty exit, Reia sat the dish she was drying aside and started to follow.

Mrs. Irutaya put her hand on Reia's shoulder, "You're actually being helpful, you can stay."

Reia looked back to Saburo for an answer of what to do. "You can if you like." he replied. "I'll be upstairs unpacking, so come on up when you're done." Saburo zipped past his sister and on up the stairs. Sumiko stared blankly, then shook her head slightly and cocked her eyebrow. 'You can if... what?' she mumbled to herself.

Reia's eyes followed Saburo up the stairs and stopped at the top, locked onto where he had disappeared into the upstairs hall. Her expression showed a small sign of worry, being unfamiliar with her surroundings.

"Just finish the dishes. Yasu and I will take care of the rest." Mrs. Irutaya smiled.

-- -- --

Saburo tossed the bags on his bed and unzipped them. Reia's clothes were folded and packed with precision, everything a uniform size and arranged neatly. Saburo's packing however, was a bit more... rushed. He pulled open one of the drawers at his desk and placed Reia's clothes inside. He attempted to straighten up what he brought but wound up just stuffing his clothes in the back. He pushed the drawer closed right as Reia came in from downstairs.

"There you are." Saburo smiled. "Our clothes will be in here." he said, pointing to the desk drawer. "It isn't big but we didn't pack much."

"It will be sufficient." Reia replied.

"Could you do me a favor?" he asked while searching through his closet. "Straight across the hall is the bathroom. Could you start filling the tub for me?" Reia nodded and walked across the hallway.

"Yeah, this'll do." he said to himself, setting one of his shirts aside. The sound of running water was heard as another thought dashed across his mind. Saburo sat down in his chair and spun around to face one of his desks. He opened the top drawer and rifled through it, setting old notebooks aside and pushing around the small bits and pieces that had collected over time. "There it is." he said, finally finding what he had been looking for: a silver chain with a small pendant. He untangled all of the knots in the chain and stuffed it into his pocket.

Reia came back into the room. "The bath is filling." she signed. "It may take some time because it is quite large."

Saburo smiled. "Oh yeah." He put his things back into the desk and followed Reia back to the bath. "I forgot to mention that." Inside was a huge tub that took the majority of the small bathroom. "If it's one thing my mom likes to do, it's bathe." Saburo stuck his hand in the water and swirled it around. "Perfect." He tossed his clothes aside, stepped over into the tub and sunk down into the water, letting out a long sigh of relief. "Ya got it right with this one, mom." He looked back up at Reia, standing over him, smiling.

"Well? Getting in?" Saburo smiled back.

Reia shook her head. "I do not believe that's a good idea." she replied.

"The door's locked, and there's the bath curtain. C'mon."

A streak shot across Reia's eyes. She then nodded to Saburo. "I still do not believe it's a good idea." Reia put her clothes next to the wall, covering them with Saburo's. She stepped up and over into the water, sitting down in front of him. Saburo wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. He reached over into his pants pocket and pulled out the chain, then laid it on her chest and fastened it around her neck.

"This was something from my electronics club in high school. It's what they gave you if you completed all three of the basic and both of the advanced courses. I didn't wear it much, honestly, but I think it'll suit you well."

"Thank you." Reia signed. She held the pendant in her hands and studied it for a second. "XOR gate."

"Right on." Saburo replied, kissing her on the cheek. "So, up for going out in a bit?"

"I am always ready."

"Great, I want to show you--"

"Saburo?" Mrs. Irutaya called out from the other side of the door.

"Yeah mom, I'm in he--"

The door popped open and Saburo made a mad dash for the curtain, yanking it as fast as he could. "Shhh..." he said quietly to Reia.

"I brought you something to dry yourself off." his mother announced as she entered.

"Mom... the door was locked..." Saburo sighed.

"That thing's been busted for months. Come visit more often and you'll learn a few things." she replied. "Oh, you're on your own for dinner tonight. Yasu's and I are going to be busy all night. Help yourself to the leftovers in the refrigerator if you like." Mrs. Irutaya added as she left, pulling the door behind her.

Saburo finally relaxed. "Trust the persocom, she's much better at calculating risk." he said to himself. "Anyway, I have a little something special planned."

"What is that?" she signed.

"There's a place I used to hang out at when I was in high school. I got ahold of a couple of old buddies of mine and asked them to meet us there."

Saburo heard the door pop open again. "Ahhdamnit!" he quietly exclaimed, pulling the curtain again. He heard his sister's voice loud and clear coming inside.

"Yeah, I'm alright. I'll be going out with Tamra and Satsura." Sumiko said.

Saburo poked his head around the curtain. "Sumi! I'm in here!"

"Well hurry up! I'm going out in a little bit!"

"So am I... Just be patient." Saburo stuck his hand in the tub and flicked his wet fingers at his sister. "Go. Go, go, go, go." Sumiko curled up and let out a small squeal. "Cut it out!" she shrieked and ran out of the bathroom.

"Keep it down you two!" their mother called out from across the house.

Saburo sat up slowly. "On that note, maybe we should wrap this up." Reia nodded and stepped out. "It was not a good idea." she signed.

"But it was still fun." Saburo replied as he stood up. He pulled the drain plug's chain with his toes and rubbed his face. "Could you toss me the towel mom left out?" A few seconds later and a green bath towel whipped over the curtain rod.

"Thank ya." Saburo stepped out of the tub and dried himself off. He noticed Reia next to him doing the same, "Find that one in the closet over there?" he asked, pointing to her bath towel.

Reia shook her head and placed her hand next to the sink. "It was sitting here. With yours."

"Must've been Sumi's. I'll leave a clean set out for her. You can go back to my room if you want, I'll be there in a moment." Reia nodded and left after she finished dressing. Saburo gathered his clothes and cleaned up the bathroom. "Sumi, you're up!" he called out. He grabbed his pants and smacked the light switch, headed towards his room, and was suddenly flogged from behind.

"That's for splashing me! Won't do it again, will you?" Sumiko shouted playfully as she swung her half folded bath towel between each word.

"AAH! Damnit! Sumi! Ow! Quit it! AAAAHHHHH!!!" Saburo blurted out and ran into his room. He quickly closed the door behind him and held it shut with his weight. Reia jumped up and looked at him with a mix of confusion and sheer terror. "Welcome to having sibs." he panted. He eased up on the door when he heard his sister walk away. "Well that was pretty much pointless. Didn't even get to sit there for more than a few minutes!"

"I'm sorry." replied Reia.

"Not your fault." Saburo smiled. He tossed his shirt on the dresser and put on the one he sat aside earlier, another one of his usual computer slogan tees. "Now all we have to do is wait--"

The telephone rang, stopping Saburo mid sentence. "Well... imagine that..." he laughed.

"Saburo! Phone's for you!" he heard his mother's voice call through the floor.

Saburo stuck his head out of his bedroom door. "Thanks, mom!" he replied down the stairs. He grabbed the phone on his desk and stuck it to his ear. "Hello? Hey Jiro, what's the good word? Mmmhmm... okay. Yeah, sure. That's cool. I'll be there in a bit." Saburo put the phone back on the hook and spun around. "That's our cue."

"We are leaving now?" Reia asked.

"Yep, that's the plan." he replied. Saburo opened his closet and flipped through the hanging clothes. He pulled out an old hooded sweater and handed it to Reia. "Here, wear this." She took the hoodie and gave it a quick look... a simple gray with a single black stripe on the outside of each arm. It was a bit beat up and faded, but it still held together. Reia nodded and slipped it on over her shirt and zipped it up.

"That ought to keep the chill off of you." he said.

"My internal components will function normally in low temperatures."

"So will mine." replied Saburo as he tossed on another jacket he pulled from his closet. "I just prefer to keep 'em warm."

Saburo pulled his door shut after Reia followed him out. He headed down the hall and stopped when he heard his sister singing over the running shower. He turned to Reia with a mischievous smirk on his face, using his finger to call her over then putting it over his lips.

"Watch and learn, Reia." Saburo walked slowly over to the bathroom door. "Broken door lock, huh?" he smiled as he quietly popped the door open. "One thing about houses this old..." he whispered, reaching his hand around the door. "Is that when you flush the toilet..." Saburo flicked his wrist and closed the door. He stood back up and smiled at Reia, "It takes the cold water from the shower."

"AAAAAAAAAH! SABURO!!!" Sumiko's muffled yell could be heard outside the bathroom.

"Time to go!" Saburo said, taking Reia's hand and quickly heading downstairs. "I'm going out for a bit, Mom." he quickly rattled off, zipping through the kitchen into the living room.

"Taking your persocom with you?" his mother asked, looking up from a large bowl and cookbook.

"Yeah, Reia's coming along."

"Good." she said. "Come here for a second."

"Sure thing." Saburo replied turning back towards his mother.

"Not you. Her." Mrs. Irutaya said, pointing to Reia.

Reia tipped her head and slowly walked over to the table. She leaned down to eye level with Saburo's mother.

"You make sure he stays out of trouble, and get him back here at a decent hour."

"M-Mom!" Saburo exclaimed in slight embarassment.

"Unlike you, she won't forget." She focused her attention back on to Reia. "Don't let him drink himself silly either."

"Oh for..." he sighed, leaning his head against the wall.

"Did I mention he can get a bit impatient?" Mrs. Irutaya smiled. "Go on."

Reia nodded and headed out the door with Saburo. He pulled the door shut behind him and let out a deep breath. "Told you she's direct." She nodded again in agreement and followed Saburo down the street.

Mrs. Irutaya returned to her baking. "Just like his father." she whispered to herself.

"Ma'am?" Yasu asked.

"It's nothing."

-- -- --

"This is where I grew up." Saburo started while crossing the street. "It's no big city, but neither is where we live." He pointed out different things in his neighborhood, sharing little stories with Reia. As they got closer into the city, he showed off the schools he attended and some of his old hangout spots. He finally stopped in front of a small, hole in the wall building which was dwarfed by a pair of modern office buildings on either side.

"How this place managed to stick around, I'll never know. Anyway, here it is."

Reia looked up. Neon lights ran around the perimeter of the roof and the walls were almost completely covered in grafitti, posters, and signatures scraped into the chipping paint. The low, repetitive thump of music was heard through the brick walls.

"This is the Com Port."

"Persocom?" Reia asked.

"Naah. This place is way older than that. But that doesn't mean there won't be a good number of 'coms in there. It was one of the last of a short lived fad... internet cafes or something like that. Com means 'communication'. It was the name of some old data transfer port. A number of years ago, a couple of guys restored the building and it became the local geek haven. I spent most of my high school days here." He pushed the doors open and allowed Reia inside. The lighting was a very dim blue, the only exception being lights over the tables and at the bar. In one corner was a group of people gathered around a huge screen playing a racing game and just about everyone inside had either a laptop PC or a persocom. The DJ's booth was next to the entrance and the music was loud enough to drown out just about every other sound.

Saburo tapped Reia on the shoulder. "Here's where this comes in handy." he signed to her. "Follow me where the music isn't blowing our heads off." She nodded and followed him towards the back. Saburo shook his head for a moment. "They still deafen you at the door." he said. "Now to find the guys." He looked up and over the people walking around as he slowly navigated through the uneven rows of tables and chairs.

"Hey, Irutaya!" A group of guys at a back table waved him down.

"Ah! Over here."

Reia followed behind Saburo to a large corner table with a bench style seat that wrapped almost all the way around it. Sitting there were three younger guys, a persocom, and two mobiles walking around on the tabletop. Saburo and Reia slid in as the others scooted around to make room.

"Well, look who decided to finally reappear!"

Saburo let out a small laugh. "Hello to you too, Jiro."

Jiro sat directly across from Saburo. He was a lanky guy, slightly taller than Saburo, with extremely short hair and thin glasses. "How the hell have you been? Didn't hear much of anything from you for ages!" he said.

"Busy." replied Saburo. "My sis is graduating this weekend, so I'm in town for that."

"Tell her congrats for me. Oh! That reminds me... introductions." Jiro began pointing to everyone sitting at the table. "You know Kichiro. The persocom sitting next to him is Ayaka. Kichiro picked her up a couple of weeks back, so he's off in his own little world, installing all the software he can cram onto her drive."

Kichiro put his tablet down on the table. "Yo, Saburo." A stark contrast from both Saburo and Jiro, Kichiro had long, wiry hair that draped down on his shoulders. His clothing was basic. Plain black shirt with plain blue jeans. Kichiro's persocom, Ayaka, wore a simple maid's outfit. "It is a pleasure to meet you." she said as streaks of light dashed across her eyes.

"The new guy over there is Ryouta. He's fresh out of college as well... pretty sharp character." Jiro continued. "The two mobiles belong to Ryouta and myself. They're how we met up." he laughed. "The orange one, Miko, is mine. Ryouta's is the green one, Asuya."

"Greetings!" The tiny persocoms said in unison. The only thing that set them apart was their clothing and hair color. Otherwise they were nearly identical.

"You're Sumiko's brother, right?" Ryouta asked.

"You know my sis?" a surprised Saburo replied.

"Yeah, we hang out together... we share a number of classes, so I always see her in study sessions."

"Cool. Well, guess it's my turn. Guys, this is Reia. She's been hanging with me for about nine months now." Reia smiled and gave a tiny wave to everyone at the table.

"Stylin 'com! I dig the jewelery and threads. What model is she?" Jiro asked.

Reia decided to answer that question herself, pulling the necks of her hoodie and shirt down slightly to show her insignia and barcode.

"Where in the hell did you find that persocom? There weren't even a thousand of them made!" Ryouta quietly exclaimed.

Kichiro let out a laugh. "That's Saburo. If there's an obscure machine or part you need, he's your guy."

"Speaking of..." Saburo reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, folded silver bag. He slid it across the table to Kichiro. "I think that's the wireless card you're looking for."

Kichiro opened the bag and pulled out a small card. He flipped it over and looked real close at the bottom. "Revision 14 C. That's the one." He slid it into the side of his tablet and cracked a devious smile. "This is the one they manufactured with the rewritable chips. You can do all sorts of neat stuff with this." he explained while he reached down and opened his bag. "Rewriting the firmware with the proper code can let you monitor and reshape network traffic without actually being a node on the network."

"Ooh, that's nasty." replied Saburo.

"That's why I wanted it so bad." Kichiro reached over and handed Saburo a small case. "As promised." he added.

Saburo read the front and back. "Stalking Nights 3... limited edition. The only version with the Gamma levels." He popped the case open and handed it over to Reia. "You ought to have a blast with that."

Reia took the game and lit up immediately.

"An odd response." Kichiro commented as he tapped away.

"She likes to play games."

"You built a gamer 'com out of a Luna?" Ryouta asked.

"I didn't build anything." replied Saburo. "She found something and stuck to it."

"It's the coprocessor. It's designed to allow 'coms to get into stuff like that." Kichiro explained. "The big question of course is how good is she?"

"She puts the kids at the local arcade to shame."

"That's funny." Ryouta laughed.

"There's a setup right over there if you wanna show off." Kichiro pointed to the huge screen near their table.

Saburo smiled to Reia. "Wanna strut your stuff?" he asked.

She looked behind her to see the game setup, then turned around and nodded. "Very well, then." Kichiro replied, unplugging his tablet from Ayaka's ear ports. Kichiro and Ryouta picked up their mobiles and the group moved over to a set of plush couches surrounding a short table, controllers and cables strewn all across the top. Three other guys were chatting with each other, not paying much attention to the game in front of them.

"You guys about done?" asked Jiro.

The three looked over at him and shrugged to each other. "We were just goofing around. C'mon, take a seat." one of them replied. The group got up and handed over the controllers then sat at one of the tables close to the game screen. Jiro redistributed the game controllers and tossed himself in one of the seats.

"You guys go ahead and get set up, I'll hunt down some game servers." Jiro said.

Everyone grabbed a seat on the couch and figured out which corner of the screen was theirs.

"Are you any good at this?" Saburo asked Ryouta.

"Hardly. You?"

"Riiight... so where is the player skin with the gigantic target painted on it?"

Ryouta let out a laugh as they set up their characters. They each chose a player model, colors and entered their player names.

"Mechanic?" Ryouta looked over at Saburo. "Why do they call you that?"

"Because he can fix anything." Jiro answered.

Reia gave Saburo a tap on his shoulder. She then pointed to the screen, which was sitting at the name entry, and shrugged her shoulders. "That's right... it's always been 'Player 1' and 'Player 2' whenever you play." he replied. Saburo thought to himself for a minute, looking back and forth between Reia and the screen. He looked back up with a slight smile and soft nod. "Gotcha." He picked up Reia's controller and typed on the onscreen keyboard. S-i-l-e-n-c-e.

"Silence." he smiled, handing the controller back.

Reia's eyes streaked for a moment. She smiled and chose 'accept' on the screen.

After everyone's player was set up, Jiro brought up the list of ongoing games. "So, what'll it be? Two-on-two? Free for all? CTF?"

"Hit up a server for a good CTF game." Kichiro replied. "You do know how that's played, correct?" he asked Reia. She smiled and nodded.

"Alright then, let's kick some ass."

Jiro brought up a list of the current games. "Here's one going on at a club on the other side of town."

"Time to crash the party." Kichiro smiled.

Jiro selected the game and it started a few seconds afterwards. Reia and Kichiro ran the majority of the match while Saburo and Ryouta wound up being easy pickings, as well as distractions, for their opponents. They would keep the other team busy just long enough for Reia or Kichiro to score. The action managed to gather a couple of spectators, mostly people waiting for their drink orders at the bar who would watch and comment on the game.

After the match was over, the screen displayed everyone's total score.

AltrdSt8s - 174

Silence - 169

M3chanic - 43

RyoRising - 29

"Yup, Ryouta... we suck." Saburo announced, dropping the controller in his lap.

Kichiro laughed and sat up in his chair. "Ready to go again?" he asked.

"No way, I'm out. I only take one severe beating per day." replied Saburo.

"Same here. Just not my thing" Ryouta added in.

"At least let your 'com stick around."

Saburo turned his attention to Reia. "I know the answer to that already." he laughed. Reia smiled and nodded, keeping hold of her controller.

"Find us a good two-on-two server, Ryo."

"That I can do." he replied.

Jiro tapped Saburo on the shoulder. "Buy you a drink?" he asked.

"Sure, why not?"

"Keep an eye on Miko for me, Ryo." Saburo followed behind Jiro to the main bar and watched the action. Kichiro and Reia got set and waited for the next match to begin. "Rip 'em apart!" Kichiro shouted as the round started.

"I got your email. So, that's her I take it." Jiro started.

"Mmmhmm."

Jiro waved the bartender down and gave him his order. "She's pretty sharp. Are you sure you know what you're getting into?"

"No, not really."

"Hah!" Jiro laughed. Their drinks arrive and Jiro picks up his glass. "Here's to ya, man. It's going to be interesting." He quickly downed his drink and slid the glass towards the bartender.

"Going to be?" Saburo asked, following suit with Jiro. "It got interesting the day I found her."

"Obviously."

"Besides that." replied Saburo. "There were times where I had no idea what to expect."

"Are you at least happy with her?"

"Oh, absolutely."

"Well thereya go. Not much else matters, then." replied Jiro.

Saburo smiled and nodded then turned his attention back to the game for a moment. "Go Reia!" he cheered when she landed a tricky shot. The game ended shortly after and Reia ran over to Saburo and pointed to the scores, showing again how bad they had hammered their opponents.

"Told ya she was good!"

Kichiro, Ryouta, and their persocoms joined the others at the bar. "Get her online!" Kichiro said. "You've got something with her, most tweaked gamer coms don't perform that well."

Saburo put his arm around Reia's waist. "Yeah, she is something else with a controller in her hands. Still no clue where she picked it up."

"Let her sharpen those skills with some real opponents and she'll be tourney material in no time."

"They allow 'coms in tournaments?"

"Sure, but normally nobody enters them because their tactics are easily predictable. Her coprocessor seems to help get around that." replied Kichiro.

Saburo shrugged his shoulders. "I say she's just good."

"Can't argue with that." Kichiro laughed.

Saburo and the others returned to their table and sparked up conversation. They talked and laughed for hours about what had happened since they had last met up. Jiro and Kichiro talked about old classmates and friends, where they were now and who they had settled down with. Saburo shared some stories about Reia and what's happened on his end with Daisuke, Leiko and his job.

Time flew by and soon Reia tapped Saburo on the shoulder and pointed to an odd shaped clock above the bar.

"Whoa, yeah... it's getting a bit late." Saburo replied. "We might want to head back soon."

"Aww, come on!" Jiro replied. "The sun hasn't even gone all the way down yet!"

"I know, I know. But this is for Sumi and I want to be awake and ready for her graduation." Saburo said. "I'll be sure to drop in before I leave."

"We're always here." Kichiro replied.

"I'll give the two of you a call Sunday evening. Maybe I can convince the boss to give me an extra day off. We'll jam all night and Reia and I will red eye it back home." Saburo said as he zipped up his jacket and slipped out from around the table. He said his goodbyes around the table and headed towards the door with Reia behind him. Saburo plugged his ears with his fingers while he left to block out the extremely loud music.

"And those are my old highschool friends."

"They are nice people." Reia signed.

"Yeah, they're cool." replied Saburo. "Odd at times, but cool."

-- -- --

"I'm back, Mom!" Sumiko announced as she came inside.

Her mother stuck her head around into the living room. "Ah, Sumi. You're back early." Mrs. Irutaya smiled. "Your brother is still out."

"He's probably going crazy with his school friends." she replied.

Sumiko ran upstairs and into her room. She closed the door behind her and tossed herself on the bed, then rolled over and picked up her mobile phone. She picked out a number in her list and called.

"Hello?" the voice on the other end answered.

"Hey Ryo!" Sumiko cheered.

"Sumi! You got home earlier than I expected."

"I took care of things a bit ahead of time." she replied.

"Great!" Ryouta said. "Oh! I finally met your brother!"

"How'd I know he would head straight for the Port?" laughed Sumiko. "He didn't get you into any trouble, did he?"

"Hah. No, we just had fun chatting and playing games. Did he get back yet?"

Sumiko heard her brother's voice downstairs, announcing his return. She heard footsteps walking around downstairs, then heading up the steps and towards the bedrooms. "I'm home, Sumi." Saburo said, knocking on his sister's door.

"That was him coming in now."

"Have you seen his persocom?" asked Ryouta.

"Yeah, she follows him around everywhere." replied Sumiko.

"I've never seen a 'com like that."

"Saburo's always picking up weird stuff... I'm sure his persocom isn't an exception."

"It's more than that. The clothes, her actions, the way he treats her, it's just... different" Ryouta continued.

"Well yeah, I kinda noticed that... so what?" asked Sumiko.

"I dunno, it's kinda like..."

-- -- --

Saburo sat down at his desk and powered on his old terminal. The lights dimmed slightly as the screen lit up and the drives started to whir. "Wow... forgot how much power this ancient behemoth pulled." Reia, who was laying on the bed playing with her PDA, looked up from her game at the overhead light for a moment, then returned to her tapping and button pressing.

"C'mon... boot, boot, boot!" Saburo chanted. He put his hands on the monitor and brough his face real close to the screen. "Filesystem not checked in 608 days, check forced?!" Saburo quietly exclaimed. "Oh yeah, this will take some time." He spun around in his chair and climbed into the bed next to Reia.

"That thing's gonna be busy for a bit. So... whatcha got going on here?" he asked, scooting close to check out the PDA screen. Reia pushed his head out of the way when he started to block the screen. "Oh, that's how it is?" he said with a laugh. Saburo grabbed one of his pillows and lightly bopped her in the face.

Reia quickly jumped back, looking at him in surprise and fear. Saburo immediately dropped the pillow and tried to comfort her. "I wasn't being mean... it wasn--", he didn't complete his sentence before Reia walloped him with the pillow behind her, sending him tumbling to the floor. Saburo picked himself up, exaggerating every move as he faked a struggle to climb back up. Reia looked down at him, a confident smile on her face.

"Really, now." Saburo said and catapulted himself up and onto the bed. He wrapped one arm around Reia's waist and lightly bonked her on the head with his pillow, holding tight as she struggled playfully to get away. Eventually she managed to pin Saburo down on the bed and then started to return the favor.

Outside, Sumiko heard the racket from her brother's room and pressed her ear against the door.

"AAAH! That's twice! Twice in one day--AAAAAAAAAHH!" she heard her brother shouting in between laughter.

"Saburo! Quit making so much noise and come here for a second! Saburo!" his mother called upstairs.

Sumiko ducked around behind her bedroom door. "Yeah, Mom?", Saburo stuck his head into the hallway.

"I need a few things from the store. Yasu and I are tied up with things down here, so can you make a quick trip for me?"

"Sure thing!" he replied.

Saburo pulled his head back in and Sumiko went back to snooping. "Mom needs me to grab a few things. I'll be back in a second, okay?" Reia nodded and Saburo kissed her on the cheek. He didn't notice his sister crouched down on the other side of his bedroom door as he ran downstairs. Once Sumiko heard the front door open and close, she stood up and slowly opened the bedroom door. Reia looked up from her game and smiled at her. When Sumiko continued to stand there, staring at her, Reia tipped her head, her smile slowly starting to disappear.

"You're... you're it, aren't you?" Sumiko quietly asked.


	30. Proving Grounds

**Author's Notes: Happy Halloween one and all! Yes, I am still around and I am still hammering out this story. Many thanks to the readers who have stuck around this long for me as well as the newcomers who have recently reviewed. You're the ones that keep me on track, no matter how slow the train might be rolling.  
**

**Without further delay, here's the latest. Enjoy!**

Ch.29 - Proving Grounds

--

Saburo hung a right out of his neighborhood and followed the sidewalk into the main part of town. He took his time, checking out what has changed over the past year and a half. Most things he remembered were still around, some with new renovations or a fresh coat of paint. Others, including a computer shop he did not think very highly of, had long since closed up and disappeared. He laughed to himself as he passed by.

"Still my old home." he said.

"Hey, Saburo!" He heard Jiro call out behind him.

Saburo turned around and saw Jiro running to catch up. "Thought you were still at the Port, what's got you out around here?" he asked.

"Heading home. Kichiro and I are roomies for about a month until my new apartment opens up and his place is this way." Jiro replied, catching his breath. "He's still out with Ryo, but I'm sure he'll be back before the sun comes up."

"Don't know what surprises me more, you rooming with Kichiro or the fact that he has a place that isn't a basement." Saburo replied jokingly, "It's a constant war for bandwidth, isn't it?"

"Why yes it is." Jiro said, causing Saburo to erupt in laughter. "So what has you back out here?" he asked.

"I'm picking up some things for Mom."

"Mind if I follow?"

Saburo shrugged his shoulders, "Sure. It's just getting some groceries, but you can tag along." Jiro nodded and followed alongside. "So now that we're somewhere we can hear each other talk, how's everything?"

"All the usual. Not much has changed, really."

"Same here." replied Saburo. "Well, except for Reia. But that's about it on my end of things."

"So you're serious about this?"

-- -- --

"It's you, isn't it?"

Reia knew exactly what Sumiko was asking. She attempted to feign ignorance, giving Sumiko a blank stare and cocking her head to the side. "I saw him kiss you a few seconds ago." Sumiko commented as she sat down in Saburo's chair. A small streak of light shot across Reia's eyes and they immediately shifted and locked onto Sumiko's. "You're the girl he mentioned, aren't you?" Sumiko continued to press. Reia finally nodded, knowing Sumiko had figured it out.

Sumiko leaned forward and hung her head. "I knew he was acting weird around you." she said. "How long?"

Reia picked up her PDA and tapped around for a moment. She held it out to Sumiko and gave her a quick tap on the shoulder. It took Sumiko a few seconds to realize what Reia was doing, and then she finally read the screen.

"Five months, eleven days. Three months and five days after he acquired me."

Sumiko looked back up at Reia with slightly squinted eyes. "Okay, what's with the doodle pad?" she asked, pointing to the PDA.

Reia flipped it around and quickly wrote a response. "I am damaged. This is the only way I can 'speak' to you."

"You can't say anything?"

"No."

Sumiko twitched her head slightly. "Explain."

-- -- --

"Silence... I get it now."

"Crack straight through the subprocessor. Her primary board has a slight stress mark, but the chip is toast." Saburo walked through the automated doors to the store and picked up a basket. "Problem is replacement parts are impossible to locate."

Jiro cocked an eyebrow, "So how do you..."

"Sign language." Saburo replied, picking items from the shelves as he zipped up and down the aisles. "Software was free, too. She's also got a PDA she uses to write basic messages should I not be around."

"Clever hack, bonus points for style. Any idea how she get damaged?"

"Last owner did it."

"Doing mods or something?" asked Jiro.

Saburo shook his head and reached up towards one of the top shelves. "He beat the hell out of her." he said, stretching to grab a jar of spices.

"The point being what, exactly?"

"I haven't the slightest." Saburo shrugged his shoulders while sorting what he had tossed in his basket. "I'm gonna guess that he's a bit on the unstable side."

"No doubt. So how'd she land in your lap?"

"She ran away from 'em. Again, no idea, that's what she told me." Saburo said, reacting to Jiro's look of disbelief. "She stopped and got picked up by the 'com shop near my place."

-- -- --

"Saburo acquired me twelve days later."

"What in the..." Sumiko sank back into the chair and slowly spun around a few times. "'Com or not, I can't say I really blame you." she said. "So then what?"

Reia went to her PDA again as her eyes continued to light up. She held the PDA out to Sumiko who picked it up as she spun back around. "I have been with him since then."

Sumiko handed it back on her way around again and continued her slow twirling. "Oh-kay, what I meant is how did all this start? Did he just bring you in and tell you that you're gonna be his girl or something?"

Reia shook her head. "That is not how it happened." she wrote.

-- -- --

"Daisuke asked me to hang out with him and this new girl he met. She's apparently had some scare or something, I don't know. Anyway, he tells me to bring Reia along." Saburo explained as he walked out of the store. "And I'm thinking he's just going to weird this poor chick out dragging me and Reia along on a double date."

Jiro laughed. "He must have it bad."

"That's exactly what I said. Anyway, the 'date' wound up being all of us at a bar chatting over drinks. For some of us, maybe a drink too many. Some of us being me."

"So you got drunk and made some moves on your 'com?"

"HA! How to answer THAT without running into a brick wall." Saburo laughed out loud. "Short answer... no. Long answer... that's not why it happened."

"Fair enough."

"The entire night was great, just the four of us having a blast. Daisuke definitely had this girl from the word go, and they hit it off perfectly. We were supposed to see a movie, but I think we all decided to stick around and just chat amongst ourselves."

"Probably the best idea, too." replied Jiro. "Most people think you're trying to pirate movies when you take a 'com into a theater. That's a can of worms nobody wants to open these days."

"Yeah, you're right. Hadn't thought that far." Saburo nodded. "Anyway, Reia and I finally get home however many hours later and after a few seconds of unwinding she hands me her PDA, asking if she 'did well'. I start to reply and before I can get half the words out..."

-- -- --

"Whoa, wait-wait-wait-wait... you started it?"

Reia nodded and doodled on her PDA. "Yes." was her one word written response.

Sumiko stared blankly at Reia for a moment. "What exactly would make you do that?" Sumiko asked.

"It is difficult to explain."

"Try."

Reia nodded as her eyes lit up. She took to her PDA, tapping and sliding the stylus across the screen. After a few seconds, she turned it towards Sumiko.

"Saburo is not like everyone else. He is special. There are things only he is capable of doing. He is the only one who understands me, the only one who protects me, the only one who sees me as more than a disposable convenience."

She didn't let Sumiko have a chance to reply. Once Reia saw her eyes leave the PDA, she flipped it around, cleared the display and started writing again. Her eyes continued to remain lit by tiny dashes of light streaking from one side to the other.

"I do not want somebody else to take him away. I do not want to lose what he has given me. I do not want to lose that one person, the only one to whom I am not 'just a persocom'."

-- -- --

"Why her? Why a 'com?" asked Jiro.

"When people think of a 'com, they immediately think perfection... always at your call, never faltering or making a mistake." Saburo described as he walked into his neighborhood. "That isn't Reia. That's never been her. In reality there's a shy, clumsy girl behind those plastic ears who barely understands herself, much less the world around her. She's just... something else entirely, it's impossible to explain."

"But did you do it because she's a persocom?"

"That is the big question, isn't it?" he replied. "I don't care that she's a 'com. It really doesn't matter to me. Sure, it's cool having a girlfriend with a ten gigabit fiber link coming out of her head, but what we have wouldn't be any different if she were chromosomes instead of logic circuits. It's who she is, not what she is."

"I can respect that." Jiro nodded.

Saburo finally made it back home and stopped at the front door. "You wanna come in?" he asked.

"I'll pass. I need to make sure Kichiro doesn't go throttling my 'net access again." replied Jiro.

"That's funny." laughed Saburo. "Well, I hope you don't think I'm crazy or anything."

"Whatever, it doesn't bother me. I'm not one to tell somebody else what is right for them. The only person that needs to be convinced of that is you. Anyway, I'm gone. Call before you head out."

Saburo nodded and Jiro headed towards the street. 'At least he's on my side... I hope.' he thought to himself.

-- -- --

"He is that which is most important to me."

Sumiko looked up from the PDA, "Are you trying to say that... you love him?"

"Our conversation would not have lasted this long if I had told you that." Reia wrote in response.

The front door opened downstairs and Saburo announced his entrance. Both Reia and Sumiko looked towards the hallway and then back at each other. "We'll continue this later." Sumiko pointed her finger at Reia, giving her a serious eye. Reia cocked her head as Sumiko dashed out of Saburo's room and ducked back into her own. She continued to stare blankly through the door, even after Saburo walked in.

"Reia? Something wrong?" he asked.

She quickly looked up at him and shook her head. "Nothing is wrong." she hastily signed.

"Hmmm... okay." he shrugged his shoulders and sat down in his chair. "Finally this thing is done, I can actually get somewhere now." Saburo hammered away at the keyboard and started up a number of applications. Reia stood up and walked up behind him, watching him work. "This thing is my old faithful... had it since high school. Found it in the trash one day. It's a decent system, did what I needed."

"Saburo!" Mrs. Irutaya called upstairs again.

Saburo let out a short sigh, slid his chair over and poked his head around the door, "Do I have to go out again?"

"No, but if I could ask for Rayla's--"

"It's Reia, Mom."

"Reia, then. Can she come and help Yasu clean up the kitchen? I'm need to go lie down for a while."

Saburo scooted back around to his desk. "Mind helping Yasu?" he asked, to which Reia nodded. She headed downstairs and Saburo called out to his mother, "She's coming."

"Thank you."

Saburo pulled his head back around and continued typing. "Okay, open a connection to my systems at home... export the displays... there we go!" he said to himself as he started more programs, typing and clicking the entire way.

Sumiko walked in a few moments later. She stood beside him and stared silently.

"Hey sis, whatcha need?" he asked, keeping his eyes fixed on the screen.

Sumiko smacked her fist against Saburo's shoulder and slowly pressed it in. "That's for the hot water!"

"AAH!" Saburo pushed himself away from his sister's attack. "Damn that hurt!"

"Good, you deserve it!" She quickly replied and threw herself on her brother's bed. "Now I wanna hear what's been going on in your world."

"Work." he replied, rubbing his shoulder. "Other than that, not a whole lot. Daisuke hasn't been around as much as usual, but I can't fault him for finding a decent girl." Saburo rolled his chair back to his computer and resumed his work. "We still hang out, just not as much."

"What about this girl of yours? You haven't said much of anything about her."

"Patience, Sumi."

"Patience?!" asked Sumiko. "You're weird. I just wanna know if she's a good person, you know... if you're happy with her. You don't have to give me between the sheets details, sheesh!"

Saburo spun his chair around. "Yeah, she's cool. I like her a lot."

-- -- --

"Thank you for helping." Mrs. Irutaya told Reia. "Yasu has been instructed on what needs to be done, she will let you know what you can do." Reia emulated Saburo and gave her a smile and a thumbs up. "Very well." she replied, "I am going to get some rest, these bones aren't getting any younger." she chuckled.

Reia turned her attention to the kitchen and to Yasu.

"Mrs. Irutaya says we are to clean everything here and over on the table." Yasu pointed to several piles of dirty dishes spread throughout the kitchen. "She cooked a rather large amount of food today."

Reia nodded and started up her PDA again. She doodled a response and held it out to Yasu.

Yasu stared blankly at Reia. "What is that?" she asked.

Reia hung her head for a second, then brought her hand up and flicked her ear open. She zipped out one of her data cables, tapped Yasu's halo and plugged into her transfer port. Reia's eyes lit up with tiny streaks of light and Yasu's fell into sync shortly afterwards.

"Transferring." Yasu said in a monotone voice.

Both persocoms stood motionless for a moment, then were brought back to reality after a series of beeps and Yasu confirmed the transfer. "Language codices installed."

Reia disconnected her data cable and zipped it back in. "That is much easier." she signed.

"Interesting." Yasu said upon interpreting Reia's signing.

Reia grabbed a pile of dishes and brought them over to the sink. "I wash, you dry?" she signed in between plugging the drain in one side and filling it with fresh water and detergent. Yasu nodded and Reia plunged a large plate into the soapy water and started scrubbing. The two quickly got into a near rhythmic pattern of washing, rinsing, drying and storing.

"Did I do something wrong earlier today?" asked Yasu as Reia brought over two large handfuls of silverware and cooking utensils.

Reia put the utensils in the water and shook her head. "I did not interpret--" she started to sign, stopping quickly after she realized that her gestures were sending soap suds in every direction. "I did not interpret your actions properly." she signed again after drying her hands.

"I apologize if I did anything wrong." Yasu replied.

"You did nothing wrong." Reia smiled and returned to washing.

Yasu and Reia made quick work of the dishes and moved on to cleaning the counters and tabletops. Shortly afterwards, Sumiko came down the stairs and stood at the edge of the kitchen. She watched quietly as the two persocoms cleaned every corner and countertop with speed and efficiency. When the two had finished, Sumiko cleared her throat to get their attention.

"Hello Miss Sumiko. Is there anything I may do for you?" Yasu smiled.

"Can I have a moment with Reia, please?" asked Sumiko.

Yasu nodded, "Of course." she replied and left the room.

Reia stopped cleaning and kept eye contact with Sumiko as she approached her. She folded up her cleaning cloth and set it on the table beside her.

"Alright, here goes..." Sumiko started, "I'm going to take the leap of faith here and go along with this... and with it the possibility that my brother hasn't gone completely insane." she pointed at the ceiling in the direction of Saburo's room.

Reia lit up and replied with an energetic nod and a smile.

"But just because I accept it doesn't mean I have to agree with it. It's going to take a bit more than telling me how incredible he is for me to jump on board with the idea that I might wind up with a persocom for a sister."

Reia nodded again and reached for her PDA. "What must I do?" she wrote.

"Nothing." replied Sumiko. "This is a personal judgment thing and if you're the real deal, I'll see it. Also, I haven't told him about this, I'll let you two handle this your way. But this won't stay quiet for long... this isn't a cat that will stay in its bag. Eventually Mom and Kazuo will find out, and I am sure Saburo has told you just how difficult things may become."

Reia showed her PDA to Sumiko again. "I understand."

"I hope so, I really hope so." Sumiko quietly said as she walked back towards the stairs.


End file.
